


one day we'll get nostalgic for disaster

by heavensgate



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Fusion, Amnesia, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Unhealthy Relationships, lovers to strangers to lovers again
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:14:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 24,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25072942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heavensgate/pseuds/heavensgate
Summary: Patrick Stump has written himself out of the day he ever had to meet Pete Wentz. We request that you never mention Mr. Wentz and/or their relationship to Mr. Stump again. Thank you.Yours sincerely, Mania Corporation.an eternal sunshine of the spotless mind au
Relationships: Patrick Stump/Pete Wentz
Comments: 38
Kudos: 38





	1. Chapter 1

Pete doesn’t know what possessed him this morning on the way to work. It had all happened so quickly. One second, he was drowning in a sea of three-piece business suits and pencil skirts, the white noise of people talking into their cellphones, the cold warmth of strangers pushing against him— and then the next second, Pete was looking up to watch a train silently pull up the empty platform across him. Pete blinked once, twice, thrice, and somewhere in between those breaths, Pete had made a decision. Legs already moving, Pete absently thinks that there must have been something in the air, or maybe it was the coffee Pete drank this morning that caused him to do this, he had found a lone sachet of instant three-in-one coffee he had never bought before in his cupboard this morning. It’s not like Pete wasn’t known for rash, manic-impulsive decisions— there are several x-rays of broken bones and home videos that are a testament to that— but this one felt more than him, felt bigger; like maybe it was fate, maybe it was some weird magnetic force, maybe it was something flimsy like red thread pulling him there to the train going in the wrong direction.

Pete doesn’t know what it is, but he finds himself pushing his way out of his position from the middle of the line anyway, shoving at people to get out of his way, taking two steps at a time up the bridge connecting the two platforms. Pete is breathless, chest heavy as he trips down the stairs. He almost doesn’t make it inside the train, the faint shout of someone from behind him, the doors already closing just as Pete gave one final strong push forward to close the distance between him and the train. Pete stumbles inside and grabs at a pole to balance himself, his shoulders stinging from facing the near death experience of being squeezed between the train doors. Pete would be embarrassed by his lack of physical fitness with the way he felt himself breathe deeply, long inhales and exhales like he’s just run a marathon, but this particular compartment was empty save for three other passengers, two of which were sleeping. The only one awake was a man near the front, smiling at Pete as if they both shared a secret.

They hold gazes for far too long, longer than what Pete was usually comfortable with, but something about the stranger made it difficult for Pete to look away; it was as if the man held the other end of the red string that pulled Pete here, the one currently tangled on the left side of his chest where his heart was. Unmoving, Pete feels the lurch of the train from underneath his feet and he sways with the motion as he’s carried along with it. There is something familiar about him that stops Pete from it breaking off. When Pete looks at the stranger he tastes the Amaretto Sour he drinks at this Hong Kong-style speakeasy he’s been going to for years now, he feels the warmth of the drink crawling down the back of his throat, he sees the red strobe lights piercing the dark, the tacky neon sign that greets him  _ WISH YOU WERE HERE _ whenever he climbs up the stairs leading to the bar.

Waking up from his dizzy spell, Pete is the first one to break the frozen moment between them, lifting a finger to his lips and purses it;  _ Shh.  _ The man blinks, surprised, but his smile widens in what looked like delight and he nods at Pete. Pete tries to smile back in reply, the corner of his mouth barely even lifting, before taking the seat nearest to him. Pete looks out the window, watches the city blur through his eyes and the man fades away to the back of his mind the way strangers do. The houses all look the same in this part of the city, Pete isn’t sure but he thinks one of the stations stops at a beach nearby, Pete thinks of getting off there. Maybe that could be Pete’s adventure, or maybe Pete could act his age and get off at the next station to take the train to work; he wouldn’t be too late, he could still make it. But then Pete’s gaze slides off the window and it falls on the same stranger; like Pete is still being pulled towards him, the same weird magnetic force from earlier that pulled him to the train platform. The man doesn’t notice Pete staring, glancing, whatever Pete is doing right now. The man is looking down on his lap, and when Pete cranes his neck to see, Pete finds him to be reading a book, its cover hidden from him. Pete decides then, relying on the true North of his heart, to get off when this guy does; Pete trusts his gut feeling, the lurch towards this stranger, more than anything right now. 

Pete’s satisfied with that decision so he pulls his phone out of his pocket to find a way to pass time between now and the next station. Pete is skimming through his Notes app, looking for the grocery list he knows he made last month when he finds a folder of his old journal entries— if that’s what you would call his stream of consciousness at 2 AM in a bar bathroom as he breaks down because he feels like he’s always going to be like this for the rest of his life; warm body after warm body after warm body.

_ December 3 _

_ sorry my writing has been inconsistent. i;ve been busier lately, but like the kind of busy thats just background noise. i don;t think i have any deep (? wait im going to pretend i didnt just say that about myself but also i dont want to erase it so i could laugh at myself tomorrow) thoughts at the moment. today was easy and unremarkable.  _

_ Im thinking again abt how i really need to get laid. There was that bathroom blowjob with gabe last week but it just leaves me feeling empty still. boo hoo poor me. whatever. im sad about it. I;m allowed to be sad abt it nobody is going to read this anyway. Theres this guy Joes been talking to me about , some guy he met at a bookstore or whatever dont know what he was doing there joe doesnt read. Joe is convinced this is the guy who can turn the downward trajectory my life is currently aimed at, but all i really want is for someone to be there while i burn. what does that say about me? _

_ Bad news travels fast and i am the worst of it. _

_ Not to be embarrassing but If i dont kiss anyone by the new year i think ill just choose to die alone, thats less embarrassing than waiting for something that will never come. _

Pete feels his mouth quirk up despite himself. Jesus Christ, he had been annoying. Pete wonders what ever happened to that guy Joe mentioned, when Pete tries to think about it, his brain goes fuzzy like touching television static after a rainstorm. Pete figures the man must not have been important enough to be remembered, and Pete shouldn’t feel that bad about it, there had been a lot of them; people Joe met at the coffee shop, Joe’s new neighbor from across the hall, one or two of Joe’s second cousins.

Pete scrolls through the rest of the entries and thinks it’s for the best he had stopped writing journal entries, it was funny in small doses like this one but a whole novel of his melodrama would just show all the cracks in him. It stops being quirky and quickly starts to become concerning after the first three journal entries; a quick joke at the bar turning into an emptied-out apartment when Pete gets back from work, an off-handed comment that turns into interventions from friends, and that one in incident at a Best Buy when he was younger that ended in therapy sessions every Saturday.

The train makes a stop at a station and if Pete must admit, if there was something to regret about it, if there was something to be missed about writing, it would be the way he could tell days apart instead of how they blurred together. Pete has felt like his memory has been a little hazy and desaturated at the edges lately and it’s hard to remember if something happened last week or three years ago. Pete hesitates, fingers hovering over his phone screen, before thinking,  _ fuck it,  _ and just writing; nobody will see this except for him three years from now.

_ i wish there was a lock on the keyboard. it is too enthralling in a state like this. just like all of this has always been. the world around me has changed overnight. I feel like I’m losing my mind a little bit. I just feel like there’s been a hole where something was. like my heads been screwed the wrong way. Joe says it’s because I don’t sleep enough. Im going to blame it on the bad sex im having. I saw gabe last week, it’s been a while i think. I came over his place and he blew me. Old habits die hard, detox just to retox, etc etc. It kinda sucked, Gabe seemed bummed out and didnt want me to return the favor. So we talked instead, it was easy I guess. But maybe _

“Hi,” a quiet voice interrupts his typing. Pete looks up and sees it was the man from earlier. The man fidgets unsteadily and he almost falls as the train dives into a tunnel. There is a brief second of darkness that passes between them before Pete replies.

“Uh, hi?” Pete says slowly when it’s bright again. The stranger balances himself, beginning to nervously play with the ends of his cardigan, his eyes not meeting Pete’s. 

“Mind if I sit here?” He gestures towards the empty seat across from Pete. Pete’s gaze slides from him to the seat and to the man again. Pete would rather he not, it would be better if he didn’t meet the strangers he was weirdly attracted to up close; that way Pete won’t fall into a hole of falling in love with any person who even gave him the slightest bit of kindness. Against his better judgement, Pete shrugs in reply anyway. Pete then keeps his phone in his pocket; Pete had a feeling the man was the type to make polite small conversation and ask Pete what he had been doing. With nothing left to do with his hands, Pete settles on staring at the way they intertwine with each other on his lap, it’s better than making eye contact with the stranger anyway.

“Thanks.” the stranger said as he sat down and he proves Pete point a second later, “So why’d you race over here earlier?”

Pete raises his head to meet the man’s gaze. There is something very open in his expression and it makes Pete blink, he feels like he’s been doing that a lot lately, something about his vision has been as blurry as his memory. “Do I know you?”

“Uh, maybe you do? I’m Patrick? I think you look pretty familiar too. Do you—”

“No, like,  _ do I know you?” _ Pete interrupts, emphasizes that last bit, a little biting edge to his tone. Now that he was closer, there is something about the man’s face that makes something inside of Pete uneasy and just a little angry; but it’s an anger laced with hurt. Pete doesn’t know why or how, all Pete feels is the way his heartstrings tangle in together tightly looking at the offended look on the guy’s face.

“Oh.” the man,  _ Patrick _ replies, blue eyes growing wide, his voice very small. “I was trying to be polite.”

“I don’t want you to be polite. I want you to leave me alone.” Pete muttered gruffly, slinking down the seat and crossing his arms.

Patrick’s eyebrows furrow and his lip curves down into a dark frown. “Asshole.” Patrick bites, and Pete recognizes a crack in his voice as he says it but— and this is what was weird, Patrick doesn’t leave. Patrick remains firmly on the seat, slouching down, close enough for their knees to touch if he dared to move another inch.  Pete doesn’t think about how this made Patrick all the more attractive, there was something about the way people pass the little tests Pete litters between barbed conversations and his sharp teeth. Pete tries not to, knows it’s shitty and doesn’t actually do it on purpose, Pete is trying very hard not to turn this into one.

A station later, when Pete’s gaze slides to Patrick, it isn’t as hard or heated as earlier, there is a soft apology in the way he looks at Patrick even though the other man was engrossed on his phone and couldn’t possibly see him.

Patrick stays.

* * *

This is how Pete prepares for his appointment with Mania corporation tomorrow: by making a list of all the things he owns that remind him of Patrick and the things that he stole from Patrick. Pete has managed to squeeze himself into the broom closet that had previously acted as just another storage room for their junk before Pete had turned it into his current hiding spot. Pete can’t help it, this is the only room untouched by memories of Patrick; the kitchen has too many nights lit by refrigerator lights; his living room couch has phantom pains of Patrick’s mouth around his cock; his bedroom has memories of watching Patrick sleep and counting the number of breaths he took whenever Pete couldn’t sleep himself— but back to the point, Pete was losing himself again thinking about it, he's already lost three hours going down that hole when he saw one of Patrick’s cardigans under his bed.

The list goes like this:

  1. Patrick’s Vinyl Nerd hat— Patrick hasn’t worn it since that first year they started dating each other but that’s because Pete stole it for himself. Pete doesn’t feel too bad about it, Patrick probably brought the Star Wars hoodie he stole from Pete. It’s been months since the last time Pete remembered seeing it in the pile of clothes he never wears anymore.
  2. The shoebox full of movie tickets, concert wristbands, empty bus passes, and receipts from Lan Kwai— even the ones Pete found in his wallet, the ones with the little doodles Patrick drew at the back while they waited for their Uber to pick them up, especially those.
  3. The Rushmore DVD that Patrick never returned to the now extinct Blockbuster near his childhood home.
  4. Patrick’s mini collection of CD’s and vinyl records that he left at Pete’s place— Pete hesitated and decided to cross out this one in the end. Pete could trick himself into thinking that he had Patrick’s good music taste. It would be attractive to other people, maybe Pete would like himself better; Patrick’s music taste had been one of the things that Pete had loved about him. 
  5. Whatever else Pete finds that hurts to look at.



Turns out number five had entailed a lot more than what Pete had expected; he has a garbage bag full of random stuff in his fist now. It's weird, to think that a three-year relationship could fit in it; that all it could take was for Pete to throw it down the garbage chute, and then it would be like they never dated at all. This was what normal people did probably.

Patrick, of course, had to make it complicated by actually getting his memories of Pete removed. Which is an asshhole move for Patrick in the sense that he’s never been one for dramatics, that’s always been Pete’s thing— Patrick can’t deny that he learned it from Pete. Patrick learned a lot of things from Pete like how to tie cherry knots with his tongue and how to be mean and how to sing in front of a crowd. It’s stupid that Patrick thinks he could just erase Pete like that, like, Pete wishes he could grab Patrick by the arms and tell him that Pete’s still going to be under his skin and personality even when Patrick’s erased all memories of him,  _ you fucking asshole _ .

But Patrick can’t deny it because of obvious reasons. 

This irritates Pete even more— that Patrick had thought of it first.

Maybe it hurts too— that Pete had fucked Patrick up that bad. Pete wishes that he had been given a chance to say sorry. But then, Pete had never really been the type to actually say the words; all Pete knew was how to he sorry for himself.

Pete scowls even though there’s nobody around to take the heat of it and opens the last shoebox, this thing that Pete had found pushed to the back of his closet. Pete isn’t surprised to see Patrick’s old sheet music from that time he had played piano for a theatre group, Patrick had always insisted on hoarding paper in hopes that he could recycle them but he never really got around to doing Step 2 which was you know, actually sending them off to be recycled. Pete is about to dump Patrick’s junk along with the rest of the garbage in the bag when something winked at him underneath all the papers. Against better judgement, Pete rifles through the papers to find out what it was and he sees that it was the glossy finish of a photograph that had reflected the closet’s yellow lights.

It was a photo from a New Year’s party at Brendon’s from three years ago. In it, Pete’s hands cradled Patrick’s face and he could barely even see the way their mouths connect because of Joe’s awful instant camera’s flash, but then Pete could remember the feeling and it felt a lot like an explosion of light anyway; that had been the first time Patrick had kissed him. Pete remembers Patrick looking for that specific picture last month, said he wanted to frame it, and keep it on his nightstand because he was skinny there and according to him, that was the best he’s looked in forever. But Pete knew the truth was because Patrick liked to think that if he slept with that picture underneath his pillow, maybe he would dream and wake up to three years ago when PeteAndPatrick felt more like a relationship than the bitter way they screamed it at each other, this awful obligation to be stuck together because Patrick wanted to save him and Pete wanted to be saved.

But Patrick never did find it and then he accused Pete of not knowing how to take care of things that were important (which was obviously a thinly veiled backhanded attempt at cutting bitterness and resentment) and then Pete ignored him and Patrick had run out, coming back after a weekend of crashing at Joe’s place, and they had messy-angry sex on the floor of their living room.

Patrick never completely forgave Pete for losing the picture and Pete never really apologized for it— why would he? It wasn’t his fault. Though, Pete probably should have seen this coming, maybe if he did, he would have thought about it first and would have had the satisfaction of hating Patrick enough. Not to mention how completely humiliating it was for Joe to awkwardly tell Pete what Patrick had done. Patrick deserved to rot in hell for that one. Patrick also deserved to rot in hell for how everything, even this fucking broom closet Pete was sure was safe from him, reminded Pete of him. When Pete dies, he hopes to find Patrick there in hell, just so that he’d have the feeling of relief of knowing that Patrick was as rotten as him.

Pete’s gaze catches on the photograph again, the gentle way he holds Patrick in it, the ghost of a feeling of Patrick’s mouth, the phantom sounds of fireworks bursting in his chest when it was really just his heartbeat. Pete pauses and sighs, Pete doesn’t mean anything he’s thought of, doesn’t know why he would think of such a thing. Pete used to think—  _ still _ thinks that Patrick had been heaven-sent, this dream that he was always scared to wake up from. Until now, Pete still hasn’t woken up from it, it had just turned into a nightmare the way dreams sometimes do when you figure out it’s one.

Pete drags the garbage bag out of the closet and falls on to his living room couch, unable to make it to his bedroom; he’s fucking exhausted for some reason. The living room couch still smells a lot like the shampoo Patrick used— Pete tries not to think about it as he rests his head on his forearm and falls asleep. Maybe he could wake up from this bad dream and find out it’s not too late.


	2. Chapter 2

It’s been two stations since Patrick spoke and Pete could only write so much about the train ride in his journal ( _I’m on a train going to I don’t know where. Maybe I can trick myself into believing that I’ve lost myself and getting off at any random station is where I’m going to get me back. i pray for something to crash into me and smash me back to something more simple._ ). Realizing that his battery was down to 30% and how he had no power bank with him, Pete had resorted to drawing on a receipt he found in his wallet. There had already been a drawing there in blue ink, shapes that vaguely resemble what looked like two men; one bled blue ink on the top of his head, what was meant to be messy dark hair Pete figures, this shaky, crooked smile on his face that looked a little cold; Pete thinks this one was supposed to be him. Next to him was another man with softer features, less bleeding shadows that had been filled in, more white space, there was a half-moon that was supposed to be frozen laughter; Pete isn’t sure who he could be, unable to recognize the man's features. Pete figures this was the drawing of someone he blew in the cubicles there; it seems like it, a pick-up line without using words, any excuse to sit closer and brush his fingers along the back of someone’s hand. Pete draws on the other side of the receipt, leaving the earlier drawing as is. It was the only receipt in his wallet, Pete feels like the drawing must mean something if he could _just_ remember it. Pete should mention his failing memory to his psychiatrist in their next session.

The train stops and Pete looks up to watch one of the other passengers leave in a hurry. Pete waits for somebody to enter but the platform remains empty, he turns his head to look at Patrick who was staring out the window, or at least, pretending to. Pete could tell Patrick was wound tight, body tense, eyes stubbornly fixed at a safe spot outside beyond the window.

“I’m Pete,” Pete introduces himself, breaking the silence. Pete reaches his hand out but the quickly takes it back, realizing how stupid he must look. Pete holds his hand close to his chest, beneath his palm, Pete feels the way his heart beats fast and messy in anxiety as he waited for Patrick to acknowledge him— though, Pete can't blame him if he doesn't; it's what he deserved.

Slowly, Patrick turns his head to face him; looking very unimpressed with the way his mouth flattens to a thin line. Patrick raises one delicate eyebrow, but he doesn’t say anything. As the silence stretches on, Pete bites down hard on his lip, tearing at the dried piece of skin there; Pete tastes blood and this should be warning enough not to open his mouth.

“I was an asshole earlier. I— sorry. I think I’m having a bad day.” Pete said, the aftertaste of blood still fresh on his tongue, looking down at his hands on his lap.

Patrick is quiet for a long time before he finally replies, “You think? How do you not know?”

Pete doesn’t look up, but he wants to, he really wants to. “It’s hard to tell what my feelings are. They tangle together a lot.”

“Huh. That shouldn’t make sense, but it does.” Patrick’s voice sounds softer than it did earlier, like he really did mean it. Pete finally looks up and there is something in the way Patrick is looking at him right now that makes Pete undeniably seen; it makes all the hair at the back of his neck stand up.

“I just— I can’t handle it when people are nice to me,” Pete explains, his mouth getting the best of him. Pete realizes the feeling of a sucker punch to his stomach and his wildly beating heart to be nerves; Pete is sure he hasn’t felt this way around someone in a while, a weird shyness, this desire to impress and explain yourself. Mix that with Pete’s self-destructive tendencies, it was a test too; for Pete to lay down all the bad things about himself and see if they’d stay. This was how Pete flirted. “It’s like, I feel like I take advantage of good things. I mess it up. I mess people up.”

“I don’t think you do.” Patrick is quick to reply, like he was speaking from his heart, from a script neither of them could see, but he still speaks softly and delicately.

“But you don’t know me, do you?” Pete says and it hurts him more to say it than it must have hurt Patrick.

Patrick doesn’t seem that affected, “I know a lot of assholes so I can tell when someone’s being one. I promise to call you out on it when you do act like it.” is all Patrick says in reply, mildly annoyed, “You don’t know me either. I’m not nice. I just try very hard to be, maybe you should try that sometime.”

“I make a living as an asshole.” Which is obviously false, but it’s better to be honest with Patrick now than later. Pete’s unexpectedly rewarded with a small smile from Patrick; sunlight pierces Pete’s heart. “What about you, what do you do for a living?”

Patrick is about to open his mouth but Pete interrupts without thinking, “Wait no— let me guess.”

Patrick leans back in his seat, the edges of his mouth curved into the beginning of something that resembled a smile, his eyes dance with something like early summer light in them. Pete finds it hard to look away from him, words caught in his throat for a second before remembering how to talk.

“Your day job is something boring like corporate, but every weekend you sing at dive bars for extra cash and to keep you sane?” Pete tries and Patrick’s mouth curves into a full grin now.

“What makes you say that?” Patrick asks him, leaning forward in his seat in interest. This morning had been a depressing black and white with gray concrete, but now early summer sunlight filters through the dirty train window and Patrick’s skin seems to drink it all in.

“I don't know. Why, am I right? Are you?”

“Unfortunately, you're wrong," Patrick replies, ducking his head shyly as he tugs at the ends of his cardigan; Pete finds the blush painting Patrick’s ears to be very endearing. "But I dream of singing. I'm not a— not a singer, it’s just something I wish I could do. It's weird that you could see that in me.” 

“Why don't you sing then?”

Patrick shrugs, “I don't know. It's just something that I started thinking of doing recently. I never thought about it when I was a kid, and I get crazy stage fright. Now that I think about it, I’m not sure where it came from.”

“Can I hear you?”

“What?”

“Can I hear you sing?”

“No.” Patrick frowns, but Pete could see the way the blush had spread to Patrick's cheeks now, can see the way Patrick was attempting to hold back laughter— Pete could tell, there was something in Patrick's eyes that showed it.

“But I’m sure you have such a _good_ voice. I’m sure it will be like magic, that’s how good music makes me feel.”

“Please be quiet.” Patrick says, endearingly exasperated, the tips of his ears turning even pinker. Pete only grins at him, which makes Patrick blush harder and press down on his lips firmly. Pete realizes it's difficult to rip his eyes away from Patrick’s mouth.

“Fine, I’ll quit.” Pete says, eyes sliding to meet Patrick’s own blue eyes now, “But if you’re not a world-famous, Grammy nominated singer, where are you going to? I can’t imagine you working a day job when you could be a rockstar.”

“Uh. I’m not on the way to work actually.” Patrick replies, flashing a smile at Pete’s teasing like it was charming instead of annoying. Patrick drops his gaze again and scratches the back of his ear consciously. “I just hopped on the train and I guess I’m getting off anywhere that feels right. It’s dumb, sorry.”

“No. It’s not.” Pete says, and he’s just as surprised as Patrick in how genuine he sounded. It’s not often Pete wasn’t an asshole unless it meant something in return, but something about Patrick made him want to not be Pete Wentz just for this second— and there it is again, a lurch in his stomach, the red thread tangling between the two of them, bringing them closer together. “That’s why I ran to this train. I guess I’m tired of being who I am.”

Patrick nods slowly, cautiously looking up to meet Pete’s gaze, his face serious but very vulnerable at this moment. “I feel like I’ve just been living through the motions lately. Do you feel that way too?”

“Yeah. I think I do.”

Patrick smiles at him then, this wide smile that meant relief, meant understanding, meant salvation— Pete doesn't think of that last word and how it feels so heavy. Pete feels like he’s discovered something in this moment and he hadn’t even been looking. “Wanna spend the whole day together and get off at the next station?”

“I was hoping you’d ask me that.” There is a heartbeat of silence when Patrick adds quietly, this soft look on his face, “You look as lost as I do.”

“Maybe you have a savior complex for disasters like me.” Pete grins thinly at Patrick because it’s true; Pete knows this to be true about himself and he wants so badly to protect Patrick from him but he _wants_ Patrick too— Pete’s feelings were definitely tangled up. 

“Believe me. We were wrecks before we ran into each other.” Patrick says, and it makes Pete laugh despite how he didn’t want to. Patrick looked pleased with himself for making Pete laugh and it makes the laughter settle deep inside of Pete, under his skin and mix into his bloodstream; this sort of weird happiness.

* * *

Since its opening in 2001, Mania Corporation remains to be the first and only company to offer complete and non-invasive memory removal services to the general population. In the past nineteen (19) years of operation, Mania Corporation boasts of a 99.8% success rate and millions of pleased customers.

 **About the** **_Past Life_ ** **Procedure**

The patient will undergo a surgical procedure that will extract memories of a specific individual from their brain. With your assistance and the possessions that you have brought, your doctor will curate a map of your brain to bring memories to the front which will be then extracted with the _Nightmare Machine_. Rest assured that all of our doctors and nurses are licensed professionals.

Within the first month after undergoing _Past Life_ , your brain is still vulnerable to reforming the memories that our team has erased. Therefore, we emphasize that for the first month, friends and family should agree to assist you throughout this time. Full recovery occurs after a year of the procedure.

 **Before the** **_Past Life_ ** **Procedure**

  1. Follow pre-surgery directions and diet (i.e. avoid smoking, eating, or drinking anything after midnight on the night before the procedure)
  2. Sleep for at least ten (10) hours; the process is both physically and psychologically taxing on your mind and body.
  3. Please bring objects that would trigger strong emotional responses of the individual you would like to forget (i.e. photos, gifts, articles of clothing) these will be used for the procedure. They may be returned to you upon your request, but our doctors do not recommend it as it may cause complications during the recovery period.
  4. Please bring a companion who may take care of you after the procedure.



**Things to Think About**

_Past Life_ is an _irreversible_ procedure and should only be treated as a last resort. Ensure that you are of sound mind and body to make decisions such as these. The choice to proceed with the surgery is up to you; if at any point before the surgery begins you feel uncomfortable and wish to stop, our medical team is legally and morally bound to cancel the surgery. If you wish, you may ask our doctors to refer you to our partner psychologists who may be able to help you in another way.

There is no way to reverse the process during and after _Past Life_ — clients must be completely sure. Mania corporation will not be held liable for clients’ regrets and/or ill-feelings regarding the procedure. 

**Risks**

_Past Life_ is not perfect; risks that accompany the procedure would be:

  1. Death
  2. Brain damage (either permanent or temporary)
  3. Erasure of unrelated memories
  4. Fits (seizures)



Mild side effects that individuals feel for the first two weeks would be:

  1. Dizzy spells
  2. Gaps in memory
  3. Personality or behavior changes.
  4. Confusion
  5. Vivid dreams and/or nightmares



If these symptoms continue after two weeks, please contact our clinic or see a health professional.

Although there is only a 3% chance of this occurring, in the case that an individual has not fully recovered from the procedure (i.e. recovery period is one (1) month and full recovery is after a year) and is exposed to a trigger, memories may slowly begin to return; thus, rendering _Past Life_ useless. Mania Corporation does not offer refunds or a discounted and/or free second procedure for the patient.

**Make Your Choice**

I have had the opportunity to discuss this surgery with the doctor and to ask questions. I consent to the surgery as described.

Patient’s Name: Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz III

Patient’s Witness: Joseph Trohman

Doctor’s Name: Michael Day, D.Clin.Surg.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you guys still enjoyed this chapter even though not a lot happened in this one but uh think of it as a breather for when the angst begins next week :-) im v excited for that to happen
> 
> im on [tumblr](https://supersfade.tumblr.com/)!


	3. Chapter 3

“Okay so I fall into the middle of a dream and I’m running but there’s someone with me. I’m holding their hand and like, I think we’re being chased by something,”

They’re talking about dreams now. Pete isn’t sure how this happened, one second he was talking about this dog that he owned a decade ago and then Patrick had talked about being gifted a stripper for his birthday by some of his friends, and somehow that led to Pete telling him about a recurring dream he’s been having every Wednesday.

Pete opens his mouth to continue, but he falters when Patrick moves closer to listen to him speak. A station ago, Patrick had moved to sit down next to him, and Patrick had a reason to— sort of. It was to show him the station map on his phone so they could decide together which stop they would get off. Pete had forgotten how to speak for a second, at the proximity of Patrick; Pete thinks of how Patrick’s shampoo smells familiar. Catching himself, in an attempt to stop being a fucking creep, Pete takes brief inhales through his mouth; Pete is sure this just makes him creepier to Patrick who only furrows his eyebrows at Pete but doesn’t say anything, Patrick’s mouth only curved slightly in what could be amusement.

“And then?” Patrick prompts when Pete’s fallen silent, nudging him slightly with his shoulder, a small smile on his face. Pete looks down on his hands and tries to quickly inhale a breath through his mouth; he feels a warmth crawling up his neck.

“And then we end up in my childhood bedroom and we try to hide under my bed— which is a fucking nightmare in itself, I used to do that all the time whenever my parents fought and I remember it was just so weird to have someone there with me because that was the place where I feel like I felt the most alone.” 

Pete catches himself for a second, realizing what he had just said, the ease in which he just told Patrick his stupid childhood trauma just like that, but Patrick’s face doesn’t change and so he continues, “But like, anyway, it’s huge under there and we find out it’s actually a hedge maze under there. We keep running until we reach the end of it and then it just— I wake up before we could escape.”

“I think you dreamt a song.” Patrick tells him instead of calling him out— seriously, what was that, why did Pete just say that? Pete had realized ten minutes earlier that Patrick was a bit of an outspoken pretentious snob who wasn’t afraid to call someone out and is half-proud about it underneath his soft shell of thin cardigans and rosy pink skin that blushed easily; so it was out of character for Patrick already, or maybe, he really was just a stranger Pete was still figuring out. Though either way, Pete doesn’t mind this new piece of information as much he should; it is endearingly charming the way Patrick turns his nose up and furrows his brow when he catches Pete saying something stupid.

“I did?” Pete asks with a grin and leaning forward in challenge, their foreheads close enough to touch right now.

“I’m sure. I know I’ve heard something like that on the radio while going record shopping in this place downtown near—”

“Are you talking about Vinyl Nerd? On the corner with the laundry shop? I go there too. You look like the type.” Pete explains, laughing at the surprised look on Patrick’s face.

“Are you a stalker or are you lying to impress me?” Patrick asks suspiciously but there is a smile on his face. Pete feels his own smile mirroring it, Pete doesn’t remember the last time he’s felt like this while talking to someone; the feeling is new and old at the same time. “I’ve never been seduced through fake dreams and record store music before.”

“Are you telling me the way I dream is wrong?” Pete asks and he can’t help but laugh again. “You tell me one of your dreams then.”

Patrick shrugs, thinks about it, looking at the distance and Pete takes the opportunity to watch him without it being creepy. Pete doesn’t know how but Patrick has eyes that Pete feels like he’s seen somewhere before.

“I never remember my dreams.” Patrick shrugs again, “I can tell you nightmares though.”

“Those are my favorite kinds.”

“Huh. I wish I was surprised to find that out.” Patrick replies with a laugh, “but like I guess I could tell you this funny nightmare I had? Like, it’s a nightmare in the same vein as waking up naked in class.”

“That’s a classic. I love that shit.”

Patrick laughs again; when Patrick laughs, his eyes crinkle, laughter lines wrinkling around its edges. Pete is proud of himself in the way Patrick seems to find everything he says funny. “I had this nightmare where I went on a date, I think it was supposed to be my first date with this guy who was wearing this hoodie that said _LOVE CAN’T SAVE YOU_ , you know, like from Star Wars That’s not the weird part but it feels important to say?

“Anyway we were at the movies but I’m watching myself on the screen and I’m back at my mom’s house, on the porch, and I’m singing for that same guy in this ugly argyle sweater and mismatched socks. And just when the song ends, I wake up. I couldn’t sleep until I saw the sunrise, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It was just _weird_. Like you know those dreams where they just feel so vivid like it really did happen, but like not to you in this universe?”

“That is _not_ a nightmare. You definitely just dream weird.” Pete says, shoving lightly at Patrick’s arm; the tips of his fingers stutter with static electricity at the touch.

“Maybe I do,” Patrick replies, wrinkling his nose, “but sometimes what separates dreams and nightmares is the feeling, you know? And that one felt like a nightmare. I just felt sad.”

“What do you think that dream meant?”

“My subconscious was probably telling me that my love life is forever doomed in this one. Like, what else could that hoodie mean? But like, at least, dream-me is getting some action.”

Pete laughs, the kind of laughter that settles warm in his stomach, “I wanna say what an asshole your dream guy is for wearing a hoodie like that, but I could see me doing that.”

“You see yourself going on a date with me?”

Patrick grins at Pete like this was a challenge. Pete falters, swallowing the lump that’s appeared in his throat. “Depends. Are you saying that I’m your dream guy?”

“I’m saying you're an asshole,” Patrick replies, a blush creeping up his neck again. Pete pretends not to notice it this time, doesn’t want to mention it because if he teases Patrick then that means that this would mean something, and Pete desperately doesn’t want it to. This isn’t a joke anymore, this feels like something serious. There’s a risk of losing things when Pete says it aloud, when something he wants falls in his open palms. All Pete’s hands knew were violence and how to protect himself, Pete can’t think of a time when he had held something else tenderly.

* * *

“You haven’t been taking your medication.” is the first thing Patrick says when Pete gets home. Pete is very tired, has been wound tight the whole day and he isn’t sure if his body even knows how to move anymore. What he definitely doesn't need right now is to hear Patrick display his self-destructive tendencies like a fact and less like the questions he’s been throwing in the middle of tense silence. Subtlety has never been Patrick’s strong suit.

_Pete, have you been smoking again?_

_Pete, how much have you had to drink?_

_Pete, where were you last night?_

_Pete, should I be worried about you?_

Pete also doesn’t miss how Patrick doesn’t say his name. This one might hurt more than the others, this must be the reason why Pete can’t stand to look at him right now. If he does, Patrick will take one look good at Pete and he’d finally walk out the door and never come back. There is something underneath Pete’s skin, this growing bitter darkness and Pete knows this is something that Patrick can’t trick himself into romanticizing.

“If you’re not going to answer, can you at least look at me?” 

It’s times like these that Patrick freaks Pete out; the way he could read Pete’s mind sometimes. Patrick knows him too well and that scares Pete.

Pete still doesn’t move to turn his face. 

“Pete,” Patrick says softly now, knowing the right words and tone of voice for Pete to crumble for him; it works for a split second, and Pete is tempted to turn his head just so he could see the kind way Patrick looked at him. But that’s a gamble and there’s more to lose if Pete turns and sees something he doesn’t want to. “Let me care about you. I don’t know why you’re pushing me away.”

It’s in this second that Pete wishes he could hate Patrick. It’s a realization that feels like his heart is being torn apart, like a truth that’s been rotting in his body for a while now; but now there is a hole on his chest for it to leak out of.

“Stop trying to fucking fix me.” Pete snaps, the bitter darkness in Pete’s bloodstream escaping close behind the truth and it twists his words into something mean as they leave Pete’s mouth. “I don’t want your kindness. Stop thinking that you loving me is going to cure my depression or whatever. Your savior complex is _not_ subtle.”

There is a tense silence but Pete still refuses to look at Patrick. Pete imagines Patrick to throw his gaze up towards the ceiling and count backward the way he does when he thought Pete was being dramatic; Pete thinks of a time when at the end of the countdown, their mouths would meet. Now, they just grow farther apart every time Patrick reached zero.

“Pete, what are you talking about?” Patrick asks him and there it was again, his own name weaponized against him. Patrick's voice was carefully calm, a strain to it like he was trying very hard and it just makes Pete even angrier, this choking resentment that Patrick was still trying with him while Pete didn’t know how to anymore. It wasn’t that Pete was mad at Patrick, Patrick was just a casualty in the way Pete hated himself.

“I’ve been thinking about how this relationship has been doomed from the start. You get off on saving people and I let you think that you could save me. But I’m falling apart again and it’s too much for you to handle. And I’m just so sorry that I can’t be the person you’ve made up in your head.”

“What person? What are you talking about?” Patrick asks, and his voice trembles with what Pete thinks as hurt. Pete could tell Patrick’s calm exterior was slowly falling apart, being broken down. Patrick asks him again, repeats himself, he’s giving Pete a chance to take back what he said or explain himself but Pete doesn’t take it.

“You’re such a fucking asshole.” Patrick explodes when Pete doesn’t say anything, but even then it is still contained in that vacuum of Patrick’s skin. Patrick doesn’t get angry the same way Pete does; there is a difference between being in a warzone and being caught in the crossfires. “I don’t want to fix you, I never wanted to. I love you the way you are but I'd love for you to get better. All I want is to be there for you. Why do you punish anyone who tries to show you any bit of kindness?”

“Blame it all on me. Whatever. You’re the fucking saint here. I’m sure that’s what Michael has been telling you anyway.”

Pete could tell he’s hit a sensitive spot when Patrick’s voice grows louder, big enough to fill the room as he shouts back at Pete, “Don’t talk about things you don’t know _anything_ about.”

“I don’t know anything, but your reaction proves a lot.”

“ _Fuck you, Pete_.”

“Just go over to his apartment already. You do that right? Cry on his shoulder about how shitty your boyfriend is?”

“I cry because you scare me, and because I don’t know what’s going to happen to you, and there’s nobody else who can understand—”

“Oh, fuck off.” Pete scoffs and he finally turns to look at Patrick. Patrick is a furious shade of red, but he’s not blushing the way he does when Pete used to say something nice to him. Patrick is trembling, he is fireworks about to go off too soon. Pete thinks Patrick’s still beautiful like this, but Pete wishes he still knew how to make Patrick laugh.

Pete wants to say _I’m sorry_ and _don’t leave me_ and _I’m so scared I don’t know why I’m doing this_ , but instead he says, “Don’t bullshit me.”

Patrick’s face breaks, his face crumbles and twists into pain. Pete watches the way Patrick squeezes his eyes shut and how his hands turn into fists at his sides. Patrick is breathing shallow and crooked, broken breaths. Pete imagines his hands to reach towards Patrick’s cheek and thumb the tear tracks that skate down his face, but Pete stays still.

“You want to know the truth?” Patrick asks his shoes, his voice broken and dejected. “The other day when you stood me up, I was waiting for you and I remember being so hopeful that I could have the old you back and that we were going to have a normal dinner. But you never arrived so I invited Michael. And Pete, Michael was _there_ where you should have been. I looked at him and I wanted to cry because I could have him, you know? And I’m _sorry_ for thinking that, but he _looks_ at me like that and I could have him if I just closed that distance between us, but I didn’t do anything because I _loved_ you.

“I still love you. I’m waiting for you to come back to me. Pete, I miss you. I don’t want to be with anyone else.” Patrick says softly, opening his arms so his hands reached towards Pete. All Pete had to do was take that one step forward so he could be back into Patrick’s arms. It’s silent between them as Pete stares at Patrick’s hands; Pete has never hated himself more than he did right now.

“Pete,” Patrick says, his voice begging now, “please say something.”

Patrick is saying he loved him, but what he’s looking for is a reason to keep loving Pete. Pete doesn’t have the words, can’t form sentences. Sometimes, it's hard to see the world changing around you, but when you do, when it’s something big like this; it hurts so much more because there’s fear mixed in all of it. This used to be a nightmare, Patrick falling out of love with him, this thing where Pete would think he'd deal with it when he got there, but it’s happening in real-time now. 

“I’ve lost who I am.” is all Pete says, feeling the burn of tears in his eyes. Pete will never forgive himself if he cried right now. “Nothing should stop you anymore. You can fuck Michael or whoever else you want now.”

As soon as he said it, Pete wishes he could take it back.

“I hate you.” Patrick says, but his voice doesn’t have any heat in it, has lost all the fight in it. Pete hates him a little bit, wants to ask him why he doesn’t want to fight for him anymore; but then Pete realizes it’s because he’s sucked it all out of Patrick; there’s nothing left for Patrick. 

“That’s all on you, ‘Trick.” Pete says and he says the nickname like it was a curse; it burns his tongue the same way anyway, “Don’t you think I hate being reminded of how much you miss the person that I was before? I’m still the same old mess, somewhere along the way, you just made up another version of me and fell in love with him.”

“I hate _you_. I try so hard to be a good person, but you make it so much easier for me to be all the parts I hate about myself.”

“So you thought you could just erase your memories of me?” Pete asks him and it feels so good to finally say. This isn’t the real Patrick, but it’s a pretty close alternative that Pete could take. Pete takes satisfaction in it, in the way Patrick looks taken aback and confused; eyebrows furrowing, mouth pursed, eyes glassy with tears he was too stubborn to cry. “You thought that if you erased me from your brain then you’d be back to normal? The Patrick before Pete Wentz fucked you up? Is that why you did it?”

“Pete, what are you talking about?” Pete is surprised that Patrick had replied. This wasn’t part of the memory, Pete figured that if he went off script the memory would fall apart or Patrick would ignore him; props to Mania corp or for his brain for whatever they’re doing right now, for giving Pete this twisted fantasy.

“You think you could do that and I’d just let you?”

“Dude, what are you on?” Patrick takes a step back and his eyes are wide and he wraps his arms around himself. Pete is stunned for a second, at the way this image physically hurts, this piercing flash of pain in his chest, because Patrick’s been scared _for_ Pete, has been scared of what Pete could do to himself, but he has never been scared _of_ Pete.

“Is this what you felt when you erased me? I feel so much better now at the thought that you’d be gone from my life. After this, nobody will remember us. Our love is dead, ‘Trick. You took this to your grave and I’m taking it to mine.”

And Pete wishes he could stop. Pete wishes he could just hold Patrick in his arms but then he’s hurt, he is _so_ hurt that Patrick had given up on him just like that and Pete doesn’t deserve all the chances Patrick had given him but what if he could have gotten it right after that last one? But God, they’re never going to know now, can they? And it’s selfish of Pete to think but Pete was never a good person until Patrick chose to love him. Pete’s feelings are tangled together— the hurt is there, but underneath it all, Pete knows it’s what he deserves.

It was at this point in the memory where salty tears poured out of Patrick’s eyes, but now, in this distorted reality, Patrick was leaking saltwater out of his mouth, out of his ears, water like raindrops sliding down his skin. Patrick turns into a tidal wave in front of Pete.

“I’m destroying us, Patrick. I’m taking away the magic, the conversation, every square inch in my apartment that reminds me of you so I don’t have to remember all the things I’ve lost.”

Pete wants to stop but he also wants to hurt in a way that he’s not allowed to. Pete just wants to hurt in a way that can hurt nobody but himself, this violent collapse of everything inside of himself and this thing that he’s lost. So Pete continues, Pete lets all of it out even though they were half-lies that were hard to spit out.

“See, Patrick?” Pete screams at nothing; he is alone in the darkness; he is the man on the moon; there is nobody to lie to but himself. “I’m happy that I’ve lost you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the way my mind works is like, if i write about the love cant save u hoodie enough maybe the universe will hear me and give it to me :) also angst? should i be sorry or is everything alright? i accept answers here and on [tumblr](https://supersfade.tumblr.com/) see u next weekend, the angst will continue !


	4. Chapter 4

Pete is showing Patrick the drawing he made earlier on the receipt when Patrick moves even closer; close enough that Pete could see little rings of gold around his eyes if he stared hard enough. Patrick, unaware of their proximity, is humming in interest and tracing the lines Pete had drawn when his eyes grow wide, and his index finger points to the top of the receipt. Patrick glows with a sudden excitement as he looks up; Pete might have forgotten how to speak in that moment. “You go to Lan Kwai? This is the bar with the narrow stairs you need to walk up to and the red neon sign at the entrance, right?”

“You go there too? ” Pete said, mouth curving into a frown. Pete squints at him and tries to see if the shape of Patrick’s shadow was familiar enough; if he’s seen it against graffiti heavy bathroom stalls or kneeling on dirty porcelain tiles. Pete’s mind comes up blank but there is a mild but insistent piercing pain that splits through it for a second before Pete could think any further. “Now I feel really bad for being an asshole earlier.”

“Oh, shut up. You were an asshole, but I was being way too forward anyway.” Patrick waves his hand, and Pete is slightly taken aback at how quick Patrick had been to forgive Pete. “I think I finally recognized you from there. I love one of the gin and tonics they serve, it’s called— 

“Sour diesel.” They say at the same time and Patrick looks taken aback for a second and Pete feels the same because how the hell could he have guessed that when he orders the same drink every time and has probably only ever read the menu twice, but Patrick grins at him and it’s equally devious and shy at the same time. Pete forgets to breathe.

“Huh. The bartender told me it was a secret drink that wasn’t on the menu. Maybe I’m not as special as I think.”

“I’m more of an Amaretto sour guy myself,” Pete says, hands twisting anxiously.  _ Please don’t think I’m weird, please don’t think I’m weird, please don’t think I’m weird— it’s just a fucking drink but please don’t think I’m weird. _

“I might have to try that the next time I go. Maybe I’ll see you next time I go.” Patrick still has the same smile on his face. Pete feels a flutter on the left side of his chest at the mental image of seeing Patrick there.

“We must have met a million times by now,” Pete says, voice too soft.

Patrick's smile widened but there was nothing funny about it, “In record stores and bars or each other’s dreams?”

_ I think I’ve dreamt of you, _ Pete wants to say, but he doesn’t, he opens his mouth to form words and spill it out without knowing what he said in reply to that, but nothing comes out and the silence stretches on for way too long; the silence said a lot more than whatever Pete could have said.

Patrick doesn’t call him out on it, too busy gently thumbing the receipt with a weird look on his face that resembled something like curiosity. Pete only watches him, unable to tear his eyes away from the invisible shapes Patrick was drawing on top of his own inked ones.

“I think I know where we should get off. Two stations away from here, there’s a beach called Heaven’s Gate” Patrick says softly with a firm finality, eyes still on the receipt. Patrick pauses and Pete waits for him to continue, besides all the words Pete could have said were stuck in his throat anyway.

"Would you go there with me?” Patrick asks him, voice so quiet Pete would have thought he imagined it if it weren't for the way Pete's eyes were stuck on Patrick's mouth.

“What’s there?”

Patrick shrugs, face shuttering into something serious, “I like the sound of it. So, would you?”

* * *

_ 3... 2...1 _

Pete sees the faint explosion of light from beneath his eyelids and thinks that he and Patrick have triggered a second big bang. That once they have opened their eyes, there will be nothing of the world left, and God what a wonderful way to die that would be. But Pete remembers too late that it had just been Joe and his instant camera, and then he goes back to not thinking about anything but Patrick’s mouth. _ Patrick’s mouth, Patrick’s mouth, Patrick’s mouth _ , his brain sings like an anthem. This is the second first-kiss that they have shared and now that Pete is remembering everything, it feels just as good as it did before.

“You feel first kiss good.” Pete tells Patrick breathlessly when they pull apart, just like he did three years ago. Thankfully, Joe had already moved along to the next group of people to take pictures of them; that means Joe and his camera wouldn’t be witnesses to the way Pete is looking at Patrick right now. Pete thinks that he might have little cartoon hearts burned into his pupils.

“You’ve had my dick in your mouth.” Patrick replies incredulously, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. Patrick is not normally one to talk about their sexual activities, much less in a crowded public place with all their closest friends, but then he’s just the right amount of endearingly drunk; his face blushing pink all over, mouth red from that kiss, pupils dilated. Pete misses this look on Patrick, Pete doesn’t remember the last time he’s seen it.

Pete is turned on, but mostly he’s just in love. Which is a realization in itself since Pete hasn’t said the L word yet, it’s only been two weeks, that would be crazy even for his standards, but then he knows this— the punch drunk feeling in his chest right now, that’s what love is. Or what love had been; it’s hard to tell what Pete had felt before and what he feels now.

“You’ve never kissed me before ‘s all.” Pete explains, suddenly shy, after an awkward pause where Patrick’s eyes had beamed at him from the top of his red cup. Maybe Pete’s a bit drunker than he thinks he is, his mouth is too loose and honest. This is definitely bordering on creepy and he’s going to scare away the one good thing he’s got right now. Pete is afraid he had said that all aloud by accident and has ruined everything when Patrick’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Pete opens his mouth to take it back, weird anxiety, and maybe a bit of tequila rising up his throat.

“But we’ve kissed before? That was you I was kissing, right?” Patrick says slowly, unsure. As if maybe Pete had an evil twin brother who had been making out with Patrick whenever they greeted each other, weekday nights at Lan Kwai, and whatever other time they could fit their mouths into. Patrick’s eyes keep blinking, fighting to stay sober or at least be able to comprehend what’s going on right now and it feels like little kisses every time he does it; Pete is having a hard time looking away. Patrick doesn’t move away from him though, doesn’t take a step back to make a distance between them. Pete still feels the heat of him close enough that he knows he’ll smell like Patrick by the end of the night, until the next morning, Pete hopes.

“I— yeah that was me,” Pete says and then adds jokingly so that Patrick would drop it, “Unless you’ve been kissing other guys behind my back.”

“Then what do you mean?” Patrick asks, eyes wide, softly serious, not taking the bait.

Pete sighs and he looks away, down to their feet and he’s wishing someone would just interrupt this conversation already. The weight of Patrick’s stare is still heavy on him so Pete looks up at the top of Patrick’s head, searching for Joe to save him, but he’s already gone from the living room, called away by his girlfriend who he should have been kissing when midnight had struck. Pete sighs again, resigned to his fate when Patrick gives an insistent poke to his chest.

“You’ve just never been the first one to kiss me before. I’ve always made the first move. Sorry, it’s lame that I noticed.”

Even though he knows what’s going to happen next, Pete is still completely ready for Patrick to laugh at his face and leave him— which was a mortifying and embarrassing thought but it wouldn’t be the worst breakup that Pete’s had. Pete would survive. Pete remembers thinking in that split second of waiting for Patrick to respond, how he would like to keep Patrick around for a while before Patrick grew tired of him or before Pete fucked it all up. Pete got his wish, but he couldn’t help regret it; now that he knows how the story ends, there is a bitter taste in his mouth that mixes with the kiss.

But then Patrick frowns, to  _ himself _ and not at Pete, and he takes Pete’s hands into his own, leaving his red cup forgotten on the table they had been making out next to. The feeling of Patrick’s hand in his own, it’s a reminder of one of the reasons Pete had fallen for him; the comforting warmth of Patrick’s calloused fingers that always found themselves in Pete’s at the most important moments. Patrick leads Pete to somewhere quieter, the balcony looking out into the skyline; it’s not much quieter than the inside of Brendon’s apartment, but there are less ears around to hear Pete. It's a war zone outside with the screaming and the explosion of fireworks; there is a dissonance in the way everything is so loud but Pete’s words are soft. It all sounds so far away to Pete who is acutely aware of Patrick's breathing. Patrick doesn’t become the only thing Pete sees, it’s not that cliche where everything hyper-focuses on him— instead, Patrick becomes the war zone.

“Tell me again?” Patrick asks him gently, and he clutches Pete’s jacket to pull himself in. Their chests hit the same way Pete imagines their hearts to have collided against each other. There should have been fireworks that exploded between their chests; into the night sky, up to space so that everyone could see this moment. But then, maybe not, Pete wants to keep this to himself.

“Please don’t make me.”

“But I want to make sure I heard you right.”

“Why? What’s it matter to you?”

“I like to listen to you,” Patrick replies simply; he says it so earnestly, so sincere in its simplicity that Pete believes him. Pete falls in love with him again, the way the fireworks light up Patrick’s face for even just the briefest of seconds to bathe him in that loud light, under the quieter yellow light of Brendon’s apartment, even in the shadows Pete loves him. Pete wishes for Patrick to feel the same way about him. 

“I’m always the first one to kiss you. It doesn’t mean anything— I just. I get like that. I get insecure and it’s dumb and I notice all these things that don’t even matter.”

Patrick’s face is twisted weird, his lips pinched, but then he breaks out into a smile, and then it turns into laughter and it’s the sweetest sound Pete’s ever heard. Patrick’s laugh is loud over the sounds of partying and laughter and fireworks that flood Pete’s ears.

“You don’t think I’m weird?” Pete asks softly.

“I think you’re very weird.” Patrick says and he nervously plays with the end of Pete’s jacket without even noticing, “And for the record, I haven’t kissed you first because you always beat me to it. I think about kissing you a lot— all the time, actually.”

“You do?”

Patrick grins at him with this dirty smile that feels like a sucker punch to Pete’s stomach in the most pleasant way, “Carry me home, Pete.”

Patrick falls into Pete and Pete holds him in his arms for as long as he could. Pete holds him like that, still and frozen, trying to remember this, holding on to this memory because he’s going to lose it soon and maybe Pete doesn’t want to lose it after all.

But then, all too soon, Pete feels a weight that pushes them to stumble and they fall off the balcony, into the night; their bodies mixing with the feeling of fireworks and city lights. Pete squeezes his eyes shut, waiting for the moment where their bodies collide with the pavement, but they land on Pete’s bed instead. Patrick’s face is hidden in Pete’s neck, their arms still clutching each other, his breathing slow and steady. Pete closes his eyes, thinking he had at least a couple of hours before Patrick wakes up. Pete remembers, laying in bed with Patrick when this happened, this dizzy smile on his face and thinking while Patrick fell asleep,  _ remember this. This moment means something. This memory might save you. _

And maybe it could have, but it didn’t save a relationship and Pete forgot about it. Pete lost it, the one thing that would have physically reminded Pete of this moment until it was too late. For the first time, Pete wonders if the procedure was the right thing to do.

“I had a fun time tonight. I like you, Pete. Like I really,  _ really _ like you.” Patrick said, interrupting his thoughts, his voice a gun over the static silence in his mind. “Don’t leave me in the morning, okay? Don’t leave me.”

Pete remembers now, how tonight’s tequila shots had pulled him into sleep before he could reply, before he could try to remember everything about this moment. But now, Pete realizes that he could fight against it, that this procedure isn’t so much as forgetting Patrick but a second chance to get everything right even though it doesn't matter in the end. Patrick, whether he was a dream or a figment of Pete’s imagination or real skin and bones sleeping next to Pete, deserved as much. So Pete fights, fights against sleep, and tries to remember the feeling and smell of Patrick in his arms; that is of alcohol and fireworks smoke and warm wherever Pete touches him. Maybe Mania corp won’t take this from him, the way this felt. Pete could lay next to someone and hold them in his arms the way he’s doing now, and maybe his brain can remember Patrick and the feeling of him, and Pete would remember this sort of happiness without understanding why.

But Pete has barely closed his eyes to blink when he hears the loud sounds of waves filling his ears. When he opens his eyes, he sees that he is now in the middle of the beach. Maybe this is where memories go once you've forgotten them, where things go when they’re ending. Maybe a beach in the middle of winter could be heaven.

Pete screams before he could think, this sound that rips itself from his throat, deep from his chest. Pete screams and he cries and he holds his head in his hands. His tears mix with the saltwater that had appeared on the bottom of his bed, soon it would rise to his waist and then his neck, and then Pete would drown in it. But Pete cries anyway, he digs his nails into his skin, he curses at the sky. The things Pete wants only leave him empty when he’s finally had them in his hands. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more tears !!! also im sorry im physically unable to write anything without mentioning the beach and falling in love in public transport lmfaooo also i think this flashback scene was one of the earliest scenes i wrote lol crazy that this fic has been in progress since april
> 
> hope u enjoyed this lil chapter!! nxt weekend we'll be visiting heaven's gate & maybe there wont be tears at the end of it 😳


	5. Chapter 5

Patrick screams into the face of the ocean and Pete feels something stir inside of him.

It was going to rain soon; the weather had taken a turn for the worse when they got off the station. Pete feels like if they had gotten off earlier, then maybe they could have enjoyed the rest of their day even though it wouldn’t be as magical. But Patrick had insisted on the beach and Pete couldn’t resist, so they were here now. Pete throws his hood up his head and half-heartedly throws rocks into the sea, watching them skip once before sinking into the water. Something about the sight, of rocks diving into the blue, makes a weird combination of emotions stir inside Pete's chest that slowly crawl up his throat

“I lied.” Patrick says breaking the silence, breathing heavily, eyes still not leaving the ocean. Pete is silent for a moment, waiting for Patrick to continue, but Patrick’s mouth never twists into anything more than the firm line it was in.

“About what?” Pete finally asks him after a long pause between them where the sound of crashing waves was the only thing to be heard.

“I went here for a reason.” Patrick replies and then pauses again. “I thought I would— I would find something to make it all make sense.”

Pete was confused but he knows that there was something heavy about the moment, something about it that weighs Pete down and keeps him from replying. Pete lets Patrick’s words simmer, tries to understand them before speaking.

“Why did you think that?” Pete asks him softly; but also a little pathetically, Pete has never wanted to learn how to comfort someone more than this moment, it’s hard to outgrow the shell of self-preservation that he had built over the years.

Patrick reaches into his pocket, hand coming out as a fist but there is a gentleness in the way he holds whatever it was inside of it, like he was protecting something important. Patrick slowly opens his fist to show a receipt from Lan Kwai; there is an order of jello shots, Patrick’s Sour Diesel and— Pete’s breath catches on his throat, an order of Amaretto Sour. On top of the receipt, Patrick had written in blue ink, _MEET ME IN HEAVEN’S GATE._ Pete ducks his head and digs his fingers into the sand, there is an uncomfortable mix of feelings in his stomach.

“I don’t keep my receipts, I always recycle paper.” Patrick explains quietly, his voice so different from the screaming earlier but that same tone of desperation still sticks to his words. “It doesn’t— but I can’t throw it away, it doesn’t feel like trash. I know this wasn’t meant for me. So who does this belong to and why did I ask them to meet me here?”

Pete doesn’t reply so Patrick screams and it was only when Patrick was facing the ocean again did Pete turn to watch him. Patrick’s face is red from the sudden biting cold, his lips a shade between the lovely pink that they were and a cold blue. When Patrick screamed, it sounds a lot like crying, it sounds a lot like a song. Patrick looks at the ocean like he’s not afraid of it, fists clenched tight around his sides, but he still looks very small. There is something about this moment that Patrick needs that Pete can’t give him. Pete feels like he’s seeing Patrick for the very first time; a Patrick that is unhinged and free, real and in front of him, instead of the one in his head and from stolen glances from the corner of his eyes.

“Do you feel better?” Pete asks him just as Patrick opens his mouth again to scream one more time.

“I need this.” Patrick replies, his voice shredded and rough. Pete isn’t sure if Patrick sniffles, but Patrick quickly swipes a hand across his face before Pete could see anything else. When Patrick's hand lowers, his face looks shuttered, his eyes downcast and closed off.

“Looks like you did.” Pete doesn’t say it unkindly but Patrick looks like he’s taken it the wrong way anyway. Patrick frowns at Pete as if Pete had just said something very offensive.

“You’d understand if you tried it.” Patrick says defensively. Pete shakes his head in reply and Patrick shrugs and wraps his arms around himself. Patrick sits on the sand next to him, his body heavy. Pete imagines an earthquake; hiding Patrick’s hurt in metaphors about natural disasters instead of thinking of all the wrong things Pete could say helped him to not feel any guilt. Patrick is uncontrollable this way, unaffected by Pete.

“No offense, but I thought going on a big adventure with a stranger would be a lot more romantic and fun.” Patrick says, voice carefully neutral.

“I’m not going to apologize for disappointing you.” Pete replies, annoyed now; he bites down on his tongue from saying anything else. Pete doesn’t have anything else to say though, so he’s just biting down for the taste of blood flooding his mouth.

“You really weren’t joking when you said you made a living as an asshole.”

“Fuck you.”

“Whatever.” Patrick says and he stands up, brushes the sand off his ass. “I’ll leave you alone if that’s what you want.”

And then Patrick does. It was so easy the way he did it, there was no moment where he turned around and silently begged for Pete to stop him. It was just— one moment, Patrick was there, and in that space between a blink and a heart beat, he was gone. Patrick had left silently and quickly, almost as if he had never been there, only the fresh footprints in the sand giving him away. 

Pete is left alone there on the ocean, thinking that this felt very familiar but can’t figure out why. Pete doesn’t like to forgive and he doesn’t like to forget. But there is a pain at the side of his stomach that he has to clutch. Pete imagines folding his body into a ball for the pain to ease. Pete leaves the beach after what felt like hours but what could only have been minutes. Pete didn’t think, his mind had been empty, he had just watched the pull of the ocean and tried to remember where he had seen this all before. Pete had stumbled as he walked away, legs heavy, Patrick’s anger had spread like wildfire, the way he had spit words had cut deep and it had felt like a bee sting on the soft side of Pete’s feet with every step he took. Pete suddenly feels very hollow.

Pete wonders if he should have ran after Patrick— but then, where will they go? The beach is the perfect place for things to end.

* * *

“Listen to what I’m listening to” Patrick’s excited voice comes from behind, and then suddenly Patrick’s hands offering Pete a red earphone fills Pete's vision. “You like The Libertines, right? I saw this song in one of your Spotify playlists.”

Pete turns around to look at Patrick who was still insistently waving the earphone in his face, but now he could see the whole thing. This Patrick’s hair was long and strawberry blonde-honey, a softness in his face that was more than the usual gentleness in the way he looked at Pete. Pete figures that this memory was from a week into their weird friendship, but a week before that first kiss in Lan Kwai, and two weeks before Patrick first kissed him in Brendon’s party. He and Patrick had been stuck in that weird space between friends and not-quite, where touches and eyes lingered and there had been late-night texts that made Pete glow underneath his comforter, where there had been red earphones tangling the two of them together, Patrick pulling Pete closer into him.

“Pete, come on. You like this song, I know you do.” Patrick’s whining now, standing on his tiptoes as he tried to put it in Pete’s ear. Pete grabs Patrick’s wrist and stares at him. Patrick, unfazed, only beams. “This used to be the only song I listened to before my finals back in college. It gets me _so_ pumped.”

“I don’t remember this.” is what Pete says instead, speaking out of the memory. Pete's throat closes, making it difficult to speak. “Did I make this memory up? Am I allowed to do that?”

Patrick’s face shifts and he falls down on his heels to stand normally, but he doesn’t look away from Pete.

“You don’t remember a lot of good things.” Patrick replies softly, hands falling to his side. “What did you think this was going to be? A highlight reel of all our worst arguments?”

Patrick looks at Pete and there’s something that changes in the way he looks at Pete. It’s like Patrick had moved too slow so his mouth is moving but there’s nothing coming out. The atmosphere is very Lynchian in the way that Pete feels the hairs on the back of his necks rise in protest at the wrongness of it all. If Pete doesn’t stare too hard at Patrick, Patrick begins to blur and disappear, his shape bleeding into the background at the corner of Pete’s eyes— though, the blue of Patrick's eyes remain just as vivid and familiar.

“You can talk to me?”

“You went off-script earlier when we were arguing.” Patrick says, flatly like Pete was making his job way too difficult, his mouth and voice still not in sync. “I thought it was only fair if I did too.”

But then Patrick smiles gently at him, reaching out to squeeze Pete’s arm, “You’re missing my favorite part.”

“Wait, if it’s your favorite part and you’re me, or like, my brain made you, does that mean it’s my favorite part too?”

“See for yourself. If you stop talking long enough maybe you’d hear it. Are you ready to listen now?”

Pete remains silent and just like that Patrick switches easily into the Patrick he knew. It’s the way he looks at Pete, like he doesn’t know about the years of hurt Pete was going to put him through, a Patrick unaware of all the bad things and sadness that was to come, a Patrick pure of that first and hundredth argument. Patrick is soft and fuzzy, blurring at the edges, the memory already fading in real-time. Pete doesn't do anything though, just focuses on the parts of Patrick that he still had.

“Listen to it, please?” Patrick asks him, handing him the earphone one more time and this time Pete takes it and puts it into his ear. Pete used to do anything Patrick had asked of him, somewhere along the way, Pete had forgotten what that felt like. From his right ear, there is the sound of English rock softly playing, drowned out by the sound of Pete's beating heart.

Pete is acutely aware of the way Patrick is looking at him right now, it makes his face warm up even though he doesn’t understand why. Pete doesn’t know how to tell him he’s never done this with anyone before; that when he thinks of this in his head, Pete had wanted it to be special because he thinks this is something special. Sharing earphones, heads close together, the red wire of Patrick’s earphones tangling around themselves; this was the equivalent of a proposal when Pete had been fifteen and trying to figure out what love was. Pete thought how this was a quiet declaration of love when everyone is so loud around you and all eyes are on the both of you, even if it’s just the way Joe is quietly appraising them, barely even there because all Pete could think about was Patrick at that moment.

 _It’s only been a week but I think of you whenever I listen to this song_ , is what Patrick is telling him right now, the way he’s staring at Pete with this hopeful look on his face, not caring that Joe was right there.

 _I’m going to marry you,_ Pete remembers thinking when this happened; he remembers the way he had thought about it hard enough so that it could find its way into Patrick’s brain somehow because he was never going to be brave enough to say it. 

But Patrick was brave; giving his heart out like it was easy (and it should, it _is_ , but not to Pete who didn't know what love was). Patrick had always given his heart to him, it hasn’t happened yet, won’t happen for another two weeks at a New Year's party, but there is an echo of people shouting in the kitchen, of bad trap music, of fireworks in the distance, of Pete’s heartbeat as Patrick leaned in closer his ear to whisper something about this dickhead guy they’ve been laughing at all night. It’s dumb, it’s a private joke, it’s just small talk, but it had made Pete’s heart soar.

It was in this forgotten memory that Pete realizes he’s made a mistake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anyway, throwback to the beginning of quarantine when pw was on that radio show and played beabadoobee, grimes, and the libertines. someone tell pw i miss his voice. next week, we will be streaming 400 lux by lorde in the background and there will be tears again.
> 
> also what the hell!! we're halfway done and they're still sad ! what the fuck !


	6. Chapter 6

Pete’s in the middle of grocery shopping, his cart already half-full with all the things he needed when he realized that he was going to have to bring all of these back to his downtown apartment. Pete stares at its contents, wondering if it was all worth it, and decides that no, the time that he’s put into it isn’t worth carrying the heavy weight of it for a two hour commute. Pete’s in the middle of another internal debate, if he should put them back on their respective shelves or leave them be, thinks about what kind of person that would make him, when he hears someone cough behind him.

Pete turns around and Patrick is standing there, a carton of orange juice in hand. Patrick blurs around the edges like a half-forgotten memory or a dream. The light from the dairy section pools around Patrick and it reflects around him like a halo. Pete feels his mouth form the shape of an apology, but then Patrick speaks up before he could say anything.

“Hi.” Patrick says, voice breaking, still torn up from earlier. There was no sunlight, no starlight, no moonlight, only grocery lights and the gentle upturn curve of Patrick’s mouth when his words were shy. 

“Hi.” Pete replies slowly, eyeing Patrick warily but not stepping away either.

“We need to stop running into each other like this.”

Pete is silent for a moment, thinking about red threads and the ache in his chest when he sees Patrick. Patrick takes the silence the wrong way and looks worried, his eyebrows furrowing and teeth sinking into his bottom lip.

“Are you still mad at me?” Patrick asks tentatively, stepping back slightly like he was afraid of the answer.

“I wasn’t mad at you.”

“You were acting like an asshole.”

“I just choose to not say the right things when I’m around you.”

“So you chose to be an asshole earlier?” Patrick asks, a slight edge in his voice, but then he continues much more gently, “I wanted you to scream because I wanted you to feel better.”

“You need to understand that I’m not going to be better just by screaming at the ocean.” Pete replies, hiding his hands in his pockets so Patrick won’t see the way they trembled; Pete doesn’t want to fight. “But I didn’t feel better being an asshole around you either. I don’t know why— there’s something about you that— it makes it hard for me.”

Patrick looks at him softly with big doe eyes and the grocery lights feel like they have dimmed, the synth pop that they’re playing on the speakers fizzles into white noise, there is a ringing in Pete’s ears as they survey each other.

“I’m sorry.” Pete says, his mouth felt clumsy and the words were heavy on his tongue, not used to being there; apologies were best left to journal entries and deep inside his chest where he pushes everything down, not to the faces of people he’s hurt. Patrick’s face breaks into a smile, it’s small, but real and bright; stars must have exploded, Pete is dizzy.

“Want to go over to my place for dinner? We’ll have to split the cab fare though. I’m not getting paid until next Thursday.”

“I— If you’re sure.” Pete replies hesitantly. “I haven't been very nice to you.”

“I like being around you.”

“Makes you feel better about yourself?”

“Stop that.” Patrick says fiercely, reaching over and holding Pete by his coat, fingers gripping him gently; a contrast between his words and actions. Pete smells smoke and tastes tequila at the back of his throat, and then it’s gone before it could linger for too long. “Stop making jokes like that.”

“I’m not joking.” Pete says and then more seriously, “You can’t save me.”

“I don’t want to.” Patrick replies gently. “Now do you want to go with me or not?”

Pete sighs and looks at the ceiling, the light burns through his retinas. Maybe Pete can allow himself to find a small bit of heaven right here in the fourth aisle of this small town grocery store. When Pete’s eyes fall to Patrick with the blindly hopeful look on his face, everything becomes worth it.

“Yeah.” Pete says finally, meaning it. Pete allows himself to be happy in this moment, he will not fuck it up.

“Great.” Patrick says brightly, exhaling a breath like he was afraid Pete was going to say no. “Here, take this and go line up at the cashier. I’ll get something for dinner.”

Patrick hands him the orange juice he had been holding and their hands brush. Pete feels a wave of blue lightning crawl up his spine and end in a brief dull ache by his temples. Pete keeps his gaze fixated where their hands touch— Patrick still hasn’t pulled his hand away. Pete feels the weight of Patrick’s stare and it makes the grocery store suddenly much warmer than it did a few seconds ago.

“Did you feel that?” Patrick asks him and his voice is so soft Pete doesn’t know how he heard it over the sounds of waves crashing behind his ear.

_ I’ve been feeling it all day, _ Pete wants to tell him; there on the train seats, Patrick’s hand brushing his as he showed Patrick the receipt with the drawing at the back; when they got off at a random station and began to walk down the stairs, spaces apart because Pete was unsure and shy all of a sudden, electricity between them; Patrick grabbing his wrist and asking Pete if they could go to the beach, this bright look in his eyes, and Pete says yes because he feels like he owes Patrick something. 

Pete doesn’t say anything though, and so Patrick doesn’t say anything. Pete doesn’t know why there’s so many things he could say to Patrick, but is too scared to.

Pete turns away to leave for the cashier, the whole time feeling the heavy weight of Patrick’s eyes on his back. Patrick arrives a few minutes later and there is nothing in his hands; Pete doesn’t ask, instead, choosing to stare hard at his shoes. Patrick books an Uber and Pete holds the orange juice with two hands just so that he had something to do. Pete reads the nutrition sticker on the back of the carton, just so that his eyes and thoughts won’t drift to Patrick. But his mind asks anyway,  _ did you feel that too?  _ And Pete tells himself,  _ yes _ , when Patrick hesitantly reaches for the back of Pete’s arm, the space right above his elbow, and Pete’s covered in a thin jacket, but the touch still leaves him tender.

“Our ride is here.” Patrick says, voice quiet.

They pile into the car and Pete never realized how big a backseat could be with the way they sit so far away from each other on opposite ends. They don’t speak the entire drive back to Patrick’s apartment and Patrick had fallen asleep within fifteen minutes, the fuzzy sound of guitars screaming from the earphones he wore to escape the awkward tension between them, but all Pete could think of is how the air is heavy, of how his hands were so near Patrick’s in the dark right now.

* * *

When Pete feels himself enter another memory, he squeezes his eyes shut—  _ enough _ , he wants to say. Pete is so tired, he didn’t know that he would have to feel everything cut deeper than it did the first time; his throat is raw from fighting, his mouth is bruised from kissing, Pete isn’t sure where his head is anymore. The feeling is a lot like how he felt in his mid-twenties, this desire for everything to end because it all just hurt so much; Pete doesn’t care for everything he’s worked so hard for, Pete doesn’t care for the future— he just wants it all to end.

“Pete,” Patrick’s voice calls him from outside the darkness. There is a tightness in Patrick’s voice, this was one of the bad memories, one of the fights like wildfire; Pete has begun to welcome them despite how much they hurt, they hurt less than all the good times. Pete doesn’t want to remember all that he’s going to forget.

“ _ Pete _ ,” Patrick says again, more insistently now.

Pete opens his eyes just to get this over with, just so that he’d be one step closer to the end. Patrick is the first thing he sees, Patrick is a hurricane, in the middle of a mess of books and Pete’s clothes on the floor, of furniture where they should not be, of scattered papers and half-open drawers.

“I can’t fucking find that picture of us.” Patrick says, red-faced, mouth trembling with anger, tear tracks running down his cheeks, a wild look in his eyes. “I’ve been— I’ve been looking all day for it.”

_ What did you do to my room?  _ Pete remembers asking, but this time he stays quiet. Pete watches the disaster unfold now, the things he had missed the first time around; Patrick trembling, the way Patrick kept clenching and unclenching his fists, the misery in Patrick’s blue eyes— they’ve never looked bluer than they did now.

“I asked you to look for it, but you— you—  _ you— _ “ Patrick stutters from memory, as if Pete had spoken anyway. Patrick shouts then, this primal scream of anger and hurt, so much hurt, and he continues to scream like words have escaped him.

Pete stays silent, but this time, it was exactly what had happened before. Patrick cries, soul crushing cries, as he rubbed the tears off his face. Pete remembers, the ghost of a feeling as he watched this, feeling nothing but growing resentment towards Patrick. Patrick claws at his eyes like something trying to break out of his skin, blunt nails digging into his cheeks in a way Pete knows is painful— Pete wants to reach over and stop him, Pete can’t.

“You,” Patrick chokes out, unable to say Pete’s name, “you don’t know how to take care of things that should be taken care of.”

Pete remembers how this goes, he would remain silent, and then Patrick would storm out, but leaving the storm behind in the living room. Pete watches, frozen, as Patrick turns around to run off, and he’s already out the door when something clicks in the silence and loneliness of the room as the memory began to unfold, ready to shift into the next perversely painful memory for Pete to experience. Pete runs after Patrick without thinking, pulling the door open and not caring if he’ll fuck everything up or fall into blackness.

But then Patrick is there, and they are at the beach Pete had woken up in earlier, and Patrick is still crying, tears mixing with the sea, Pete thinks that it must be all the tears Patrick has shed over him in the past three years.

“I should have run after you.” Pete shouts after him, unable to contain it all inside of him. “I should have said sorry.”

“Then why didn’t you?” Patrick screams back, Patrick screams like he was unafraid.

“Because,” Pete starts, speaking softly now, wishing for the waves to drown him out. Pete remembers why, remembers all the voice calls he made and deleted, the texts he never sent. Pete was scared but he didn’t know what to do with all of it. And now here was the same fear that rose up his throat, the one that kept him from talking about his feelings. “Because I was so afraid of you. You made me feel so vulnerable. You made me scared to want to feel alive. I was getting better with you and that scared me because all I’ve ever known was how to be sad.”

“It’s like— you broke down everything I believed in to keep myself safe. I never thought I’d deserve love, never thought love could happen without hurt.

“I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry. I should have— I should have—”

Patrick sighs and a calmness smooths over his face, when he opens his eyes Pete thinks the blue in them is the same biting cold as the ocean. Silently, Patrick walks over to him, head down up until the moment when he was just a breath away. Patrick lifts his head, blue eyes searching for something in Pete’s face; Pete doesn’t shy away from the heavy gaze. Patrick looks vulnerable when he asks him softly, “Do you remember this place?”

“This was from that time we went to that beach outside the city— Heaven’s Gate.” Pete replies, voice cracking as memories begin to flood the same way the waves were beginning to creep in. It’s difficult to remember everything, memories growing hazy everytime he tried to think of them like they were being grabbed out of his hands. “We were still figuring out the dating thing and we were drinking in Lan Kwai with Andy and Joe. I remember Andy sitting next to me and the way you watched me all night, like— fuck, your eyes were so heavy but they were so soft. At some point, I don’t remember how, but you ended up sitting next to me.”

Pete stops, his throat betraying him and tightening, making it difficult to breathe. Pete feels the sting of tears as he remembers what happens next. “And then?” Patrick asks him gently.

“I was sad that night and you tried to understand it, you  _ listened _ to me. Nobody has ever treated me like I had anything important to say, I’m always the guy who made jokes but— but you didn’t see that. We were about to leave when you gave me the receipt with the drawing of us and you asked me if I wanted to run away with you the next morning just to distract me from whatever I was upset about— I don’t even remember what it had been about.

But I remember us screaming at the ocean and it didn’t make me feel better but I liked doing things with you, I liked being around you, and that’s what made me feel better. Being with  _ you _ made me feel better.”

“We went grocery shopping too, just so I could spend more time with you.” Patrick adds with a sad smile, eyes misty, voice so soft Pete doesn’t know how he could hear him over the sound of the waves crashing; moments with Patick we magnified this way— their own world. “You would drift off or I would lag behind, and we’d lose each other, but everytime we would find our way back to each other. You said my eyes would light up whenever I saw you.”

“And you told me it was just the orange juice in my hands.” Pete chokes out, throat constricting again at the memory but as soon as he remembers it, it disappears.

The wind whips Patrick’s hair into his face, briefly obscuring him, and Pete rushes to say, suddenly afraid that Patrick would disappear to become a hurricane.

“I should have said sorry after we fought.” Pete says quietly, voice breaking. “After every single fight I wish I had apologized.”

“Why did you do this?” Patrick asks him, his voice so sad and broken, Pete knows Patrick’s talking about all of this; the hurting, the lashing out, the completely different person he became when Patrick got too close, going through  _ Past Life _ and getting his memories erased.

“You were right, because all I know is to destroy things that love me the most.” Pete chokes out while Patrick watches him silently. “Even now all I do is hurt you. That’s all I’ve ever known. My parents taught me that loving something always meant that you were going to hurt and that you were hurting someone. So it made me hate you because you were the one thing I couldn’t break down.”

Pete cries, and maybe the ocean is actually all the tears he didn’t cry during their three year relationship because he was too busy numbing it all down, so Pete cries, he cries and cries and cries; there is a storm inside of him that’s always been here, has been here for as long as he’s known, but this is the first time Pete feels it break through the sky and his skin.

“I still hate you sometimes. But I don’t mean it. What I mean is that I wish I never met you because I know I’m not going to forget you even after this, even after this whole operation, I’m still going to feel like I’m missing something my whole life because I lost you.”

Pete feels Patrick take his hand, holding it in his own, enveloping in its comforting familiarity. Pete continues to cry, even when the beach begins to fall like puzzle pieces being split apart, Patrick still holds his hand quietly throughout the whole thing. When Patrick circles a thumb Pete’s, Pete realizes one thing.

Pete loves him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finals ended yday so here's a surprise update!!! i hope there's still someone who remembers me lmao 🥺 i wanted to post this last week to celebrate champion remix's 3rd birthday but i had finals dfbjndjkf anyway hopefully i'll be able to finish this fic before the next semester starts thank you so much if you're still reading this 🥺💛


	7. Chapter 7

“Listen, I think I’m just going to go home. Thank— _oh_ .” Patrick has just locked his apartment door behind him and Pete has barely voiced out his exit plan ( _bad idea_ , his brain screamed like a police siren when he saw the charming mess of Patrick’s living room with books strewn across the couch and music note paper littered over the floor) when Pete is interrupted by a very insistent mouth on his own. Patrick has pulled him in, has twisted his fists around the front of Pete’s shirt. Patrick kisses him like a collision, dirty but brief, pulling back almost immediately to peer at Pete.

Patrick is barely shorter than Pete, but right now, Pete is feeling very small. Patrick’s pupils are blown, nervous blue eyes shifting quickly, searching for something on Pete’s face. They're silent and unmoving except for when Patrick breathes out and Pete breathes it in. Patrick's steady gaze is heavy on him and it makes Pete's skin grow warm. Pete feels the blood rush to his ears and his heart thud against his chest— huh, that last one was new; Pete had forgotten what it was like to feel too much but still feel like nothing was ever going to be enough.

“Do you want me to stop?” Patrick asks him, voice quiet. Pete slowly lifts his hands to cradle Patrick’s face, Patrick leaning into Pete’s touch, eyelashes fluttering. Pete thumbs the corner of Patrick’s mouth, looking for a sign, a tattoo that marks the spot like a golden treasure he’s been looking for.

“Can I kiss you again?” is what Pete replies.

Patrick grins at him and Pete has never seen anyone look at him with that much want in their eyes. So when he leans in, Pete closes his eyes so that he wouldn’t have to see the way Patrick’s eyes looked up close; Pete didn’t want to see his reflection there, he was still trying to be someone else. They kiss slow, like seconds could stretch into hours and they wouldn’t care. Patrick parts his lips to let Pete in and Pete glides his teeth on the bottom of Patrick’s bottom lip. This isn’t kissing as much as it is coming back home to something. The way their mouths move, there is no awkward fumbling to figure out the space and physical landscape between them; it’s easy kissing Patrick, almost as if Pete’s done this before.

Patrick pulls away to ghost his mouth over Pete’s neck, this sensitive spot under his jaw that Pete didn’t even know was sensitive, but right at the moment a bolt of lightning travels up Pete’s spine and he might have trembled. Pete loses his fingers around Patrick’s hair, pulls a bit and Patrick only laughs. In retaliation, Patrick closes his mouth around his collarbones and sucks gently, making Pete groan into his mouth; Patrick laughs again and Pete shakes with the vibration.

“Can— we— bedroom?” Pete has been reduced to three-word phrases apparently but Patrick understands anyway and he laughs at Pete again. Pete feels a rush of blood travel down at the sound of it. Pete’s hands begin to stray, trying to find their way to the small of Patrick’s back, but then Patrick grabs Pete’s wrists and grins.

“But dinner— I wanted to order takeout. I wanted to treat you nicely.”

“I just want you,” Pete says and Patrick stills. They’re frozen, Patrick holding him by the wrists, chests colliding with every intake of breath. Pete shouldn’t get harder, but he does.

“Yeah?” Patrick exhales, pressing his hips into Pete’s curiously, brushing the strain of Patrick’s dick against Pete— they both sigh.

“Yeah,” Pete groans when Patrick presses in again, his head falling to Patrick’s shoulder. “Patrick, please. Let me give this to you.”

Patrick doesn’t say anything, but then he leads Pete to what must his bedroom. Walking backwards without looking back, Patrick leads him with hands on both of Pete's wrists, his eyes not leaving Pete’s; the blind leading the blind, Pete trusts Patrick to not let them crash into something, and Pete trusts Patrick to take him anywhere.

They reach Patrick’s bedroom and Patrick lets go of him to turn the lights on. Pete isn’t able to inspect Patrick’s room before Patrick immediately captures him into another kiss, hands finding Pete’s face again like they were made to be there. They fall onto Patrick’s bed with Pete on top of Patrick, the both of them groaning in pain when their teeth collide. But Patrick only huffs a small laugh and opens his legs so Pete could crawl between them, bringing them closer. They kiss some more, the whole time their mouths never leaving each other for more than a second or short space apart. They continue, hips rolling, pressing, slow; mouths, opening, biting down, soft; hands, unbuttoning Pete’s polo, roaming the expanse of naked skin, sinking in to form crescent moons.

Pete pulls away to help Patrick take his shirt off, Patrick’s pale skin glowing like moonlight, freckled chest like stars. Patrick sighs as Pete’s mouth traces the valley down his neck to his chest. Pete takes a rosy nipple into his mouth, swirling his tongue around it, sliding his teeth over the sensitive skin; Patrick’s fingers tangle around Pete’s hair, pulling on it.

“ _Please_ ,” Patrick keens, hips lifting off the bed, grinding his dick on Pete’s hip so Pete could feel how hard he was.

Pete presses one more kiss, right there in the middle of Patrick’s chest, just a few inches away from his heart, and begins to slowly ghost his mouth down the trail of Patrick’s chest. Pete reaches Patrick’s stomach, the top of his jeans, the outline of his dick straining. Fingers clumsy, Pete unbuttons and unzips Patrick, it’s warm skin over warm skin. Together, they drag Patrick’s jeans and briefs down and it’s like they couldn’t move fast enough, couldn’t move in a way that wasn’t so sure and controlled of themselves.

From the corner of his eyes, Pete sees Patrick sit up on his elbows to watch and it makes his blood sing something electric. Pete drags his gaze away from Patrick’s dick to hold Patrick’s stare. Patrick is a mess, red marks in the shape of Pete’s mouth on his neck, pupils blown, his hair pointing towards different directions; Pete dares to think that maybe this is more than fucking, but then he forgets when Patrick’s hip stutter without him meaning to and it pushes his dick against Pete’s lips.

Still not looking away from Patrick, Pete takes in the tip of Patrick’s leaking cock into his mouth and begins to suck gently. Patrick sighs, throws his head back, and Pete wishes to kiss and sink his teeth into his neck again again. Patrick is salty like ocean water, like tears; but Patrick also tastes sweeter than anyone Pete’s ever tasted, like that feeling in the air when Pete flies back to Chicago, _home_ , for the holidays. Pete opens his mouth wider and sinks forward, taking half of Patrick’s dick into his mouth before pulling off again to lick along his length.

Pete puts his mouth back on Patrick’s cock, loosely fisting the rest of Patrick that he hasn’t quite reached yet. Patrick is all hard lines and orange-scented body wash, it makes Pete dizzy and his dick harder, aching for friction.

“More, more. Deeper.” Patrick whines, already needy and wrecked, hands carding Pete’s hair over and over. “I’m sorry, but _please_.”

Pete pulls off and presses a soft kiss on Patrick’s upper thigh, he murmurs, “I’ll get there.”

Pete leans forward again, taking Patrick into his mouth, and with a little strain and push, he sinks down the entire length of Patrick’s dick. Pete tries hard to remember how to breathe through his nose but it’s apparently really hard to suck and breathe while rubbing against Patrick’s mattress; if Pete had to give one of these up, it would definitely be the need for air.

Patrick groans, loud and dirty, hips trembling as he tries not to push up; Pete feels his throat constrict at the feeling of Patrick hitting the back of his throat, and Patrick only groans louder. Pete attempts to lick, little kitten licks along Patrick's cock.

“You feel so good.” Patrick sighs just as Pete drags his mouth back up to pull away and breathe. Pete grins at the dopey, spaced-out look on Patrick’s face.

“Your mouth was made for me.” Patrick says quietly, this dirty grin on his face, hand trailing to rest along the side of Pete’s face. Pete’s dick gave an aching twitch, reminding him how it’s being neglected, but Pete only groans softly and leans into the inviting warmth of Patrick’s palm.

Pete turns his head to briefly kiss and suck on Patrick’s fingers, making this weird gasp of pleasure and laughter escape from Patrick’s throat that only gets Pete harder. Pete lets go of Patrick’s fingers with a pop and leans back down to take Patrick’s cock.

Pete bobs his head up and down, mouth meeting his fist every time he reaches the middle. All the while, Patrick continues these little bitten off moans and whines that drive Pete to dig his dick harder into the mattress. Pete tastes salty precum run down his throat and it makes him groan, the vibrations and contractions wrapping Patrick’s cock tighter. Patrick throws his head back and this time he falls on his back to lay on the bed, but his hips rise to chase Pete’s mouth.

“I’m close, I’m close, I’m close.” Patrick chants, hands falling to his sides to fist his sheets. Even if Patrick hadn’t said so, Pete would have been able to tell anyway; he was the same. “You can pull off if you want but I—”

Pete ignores Patrick and begins to fist faster, suck harder, roll his tongue to _taste_ ; Pete is doing every trick he’s learned just to make Patrick cum. Patrick falls apart quietly with nothing more than a choked-off moan that died halfway around his throat. Patrick shoots into his throat and Pete drinks it in obediently, moaning around Patrick’s cock at the taste. Pete pulls away and tries to lick around Patrick’s sensitive dick as Patrick’s hips tremble around the aftershocks.

Pete is gently sucking on the tip of Patrick’s cock when Patrick grabs him by the arms to pull him up for their mouths to crash into each other. Patrick kisses him like he means it; messy, without direction, all teeth. Pete feels Patrick’s hand grope his dick through his jeans, ripping a groan out of Pete’s mouth— _he was so fucking hard_.

Pete and Patrick both try to unbutton Pete’s jeans without pulling away, their fingers twisting around each other clumsily, before realizing that it was impossible. Pete groans and falls to bury his face in Patrick’s neck so that he’d have enough brain cells to do this one thing. Pete removes his jeans himself, the tantalizing feeling of Patrick rubbing his hands up and down Pete’s side.

Pete doesn’t bother to completely take his jeans off, leaves them there bunched around his thighs before taking back Patrick’s lips into his, their mouths twisted in mid-laughter. Patrick’s hands skate down Pete’s chest, leaving goosebumps wherever he touches Pete, before he slips them in Pete’s briefs.

Pete can’t help but cry out, this needy whine ripping itself from his throat when Patrick took his cock into his fist. Patrick doesn’t tease, he fists Pete dirty and quick, shoving his tongue in Pete’s mouth. Pete squeezes his eyes shut, there is heat pooling in his stomach that makes his legs tremble, _he was so close now_. Pete would be put off that he’d given someone a blowjob that finished in his mouth while he was left with a handjob, but Patrick had calloused fingers, this certain rhythm, and it just leaves Pete choking for air but not wanting to pull away from Patrick’s mouth.

When Pete comes, it feels like he’s been ripped out of his skin; his body transcends to another plane, to a dream, to a memory he must have forgotten. Patrick keeps on kissing him even as he trembles, the kisses softer now, gentle, almost shy and asking. In the shaking mess that Patrick leaves him, in the raw vulnerable state that Pete’s in, Pete feels safe enough to ask for it, whatever it is; whatever Pete is asking for, Patrick gives it to him. Aftershocks quickly fading into mere trembling, heart slowing down, the ringing in his ears smoothing into the silence of their breathing, Pete thinks that he would like to crawl inside of Patrick’s heart and never come out.

* * *

Patrick is in front of him, a broken record singing all of Pete’s darkest thoughts about himself but Pete only remembers half of the lyrics. They’re in the middle of an argument, one of the smaller ones Pete had forgotten about but he’s sure Patrick hadn’t— or at least, if Patrick did, he never forgot the growing resentment he felt towards Pete. Pete hears words like _selfish_ , _you’ve hurt me_ and _why won’t you try_ and Pete knows he should be paying attention, but it’s getting hard to listen. Pete feels other memories begin to resurface, faint echoes in his ears, his childhood room flickering into his vision whenever he blinks. Pete finds it hard to breathe all of a sudden. The walls close in on him while Pete feels like he’s unable to fit in his body, slowly moving out of it.

“What were we arguing about again?” Pete interrupts Patrick, rubbing his face; there are pins and needles vibrating underneath his skin. Pete squints at Patrick from between his fingers and he notices that there is something crumbling about Patrick, like he was starting to become a separate entity from the one in his memories. Patrick is an actor who couldn’t give a fuck about his lines; he is half-hearted and bored in the way he says things when the real Patrick had always meant what he said, always poured out his whole heart into his words, like he thought if he offered it all to Pete, Pete would feel it. Pete wasn’t sure if he ever did feel it all, the hurt Patrick felt, maybe if he did, they wouldn’t be here right now. 

Patrick's mouth curves into a weird half-smile, somewhere in between a frown and a laugh trying to be pushed down; it’s almost familiar, this is the face the real Patrick used to make when Pete said something stupid. Pete hasn’t seen that look on his face so long, has almost forgotten what it looked like, Pete feels a wave of regret wash over him again and he struggles to figh back the sting of tears in his eyes.

“We were talking about your fear of intimacy but desperation for it? You're supposed to call me an asshole and use my insecurities against me.”

“But why would I want to do that?” 

The smile disappears as fast as it appeared and there is something so broken in the way Patrick looked at him right now; Pete recognized this look, Patrick borrowed it from the argument they had about Pete missing dinner for the tenth time; it was this mix of disappointment and hurt but also acceptance, like Pete was crushing the little hope Patrick still had.

“You hated me.” Patrick finally said after a long silence; he said it so simply, Pete was almost convinced that this had been the truth.

“No I didn't. _I didn’t._ ” Pete insists softly when Patrick doesn’t look convinced. Pete reaches towards Patrick, his hands outstretched to cradle his face. Patrick only lowers his eyes to the floor, taking a step back away from Pete, putting a distance between them.

“Whatever, you can't change it now. Let’s just get this over with. You’re supposed to say—”

“I don't want to.” Pete says without thinking, taking another step forward. “Run away with me, let’s be alone together.”

Patrick looks taken aback, mouth dropping open, but Pete catches the flicker of delight in his eyes; and Pete knows this look too, can still recognize it until now, it looks a lot like the way Patrick used to look when Pete would bring flowers and do other dumb declarations of love that Patrick claimed to hate. The regret crashes into him like waves again, but there’s also love like water filling his heart; Pete’s heart suddenly _aches_ to live in this memory, in Patrick’s smile, and never come out.

“What?”

“My memories are getting shorter.” Pete says urgently, a lump in his throat, there is desperation rising from the left side of his chest. Pete reaches for Patrick again and this time Patrick lets him clutch his hands. “I’m going to lose this, but I don’t want to.”

“Pete, what are you talking about?” Patrick asks him softly, brows furrowed in confusion. Pete blinks and now Patrick looks more like Patrick, less like a memory and more like the real thing. This Patrick that was something— no, _someone_ real and not something that Pete’s brain made up. Patrick was now staring back at him with the same concern on his face the first time Pete said he was off his meds. Pete had almost forgotten this look too, had trouble placing it at first, but he does remember it now: it’s love in its most distilled form.

“I think I know how to make this stop.” Pete says, tugging at Patrick’s hand just as the apartment walls push forward again, opening the door of his apartment and running out. The world slowly crumbles until they’re left in the black, Pete leads them into the dark and they run blindly with Pete’s heart in his throat. Pete doesn’t know for how long they walk, it was so quiet, he’d be afraid that he was left alone if it weren’t for Patrick’s hands in his, Patrick’s thumb stroking the space between his thumb and index finger. Finally, they reach an incline and they begin to walk like they’re climbing a long staircase. There’s a fear that’s starting to creep in that Pete just might be leading them into further danger, but he doesn’t say anything, not trusting his mind at this moment. A few steps later, the scene slowly starts to change, light leaking into the black until Pete could make out the outline of blurry shapes in the darkness. They continue walking in silence while the light grows stronger and the details become more defined. Soon they emerge from the black into a familiar room, their sweaty hands still locked.

The music hits Pete before he recognizes it, Pete begins to remember every bad thing Patrick has said about the music selection in Lan Kwai, the shitty speakers, the hot whisper of Patrick into his ear when he would tell Pete, _take me home, I could think of better things to do together_. Pete is thinking, trying to remember which specific memory this was going to be; would it be the one that ended with Patrick throwing up outside the street, or was it going to be the one where Pete blew him in the bathroom? Maybe it was going to be the one where Patrick linked pinkies with him all night under the table, over their overlapping thighs; Patrick didn’t keep Pete a secret, but he liked making secrets only they would know and remember.

“Pete, you’re walking too fast.” Patrick complains next to him and Pete remembers how it used to annoy him in that endearing sort of way but now it fills him nothing with relief because this is Patrick, this is Patrick’s real voice, and he was still here next to him.

“Oh! I remember this one! This was the time we split the fishbowl and we kept asking the DJ to play Mr. Brightside, right? I remember Joe giving us shit for that, saying DJ’s hated it when people do that.” Patrick says excitedly next to him when it sets in, a sudden burst of energy in his step. Pete is inclined to agree and maybe his heart tightens at the way Patrick had grown excited over it, it was such a small and almost boring moment in hundreds of scattered puzzle pieces, Pete would never have thought it to be this one.

Their interlocked fingers are threatened to break apart when they run into someone, Lan Kwai had always been too small, and the relief Pete had felt earlier is replaced with this sudden cold fear that floods Pete’s lungs. Pete screams out to a Patrick who didn’t seem to notice, blue eyes still shining with excitement.

“ _Patrick!_ ” Pete cries, tugging at Patrick’s hand to bring him closer. The crowd of people dancing was beginning to get restless, more violent, moving like waves. “Don’t let go.”

Patrick looks at him with his half smile and he laughs, “What are you so afraid of, Pete? I’m still here.”

The noise of the crowded bar suddenly grows silent and Pete is acutely aware of the wave of people staring at the two of them. Pete feels the sting of tears in his eyes and grips Patrick’s hand tighter in his own. Patrick only smiles at him, that way where he didn’t understand what was happening but he understood what Pete needed.

“Patrick, come on.” Pete says, voice cracking, and he leads them down the back of the bar, into the kitchen that they had never been into. Going into a made up place turns into black but they keep walking through it anyway. They’re back in the same endless darkness as before, but Pete hits what felt like a wall and is forced to stop. This darkness feels like a box, but Pete hears people talking, music being pumped through speakers, Patrick breathing next to him, the space suddenly so very small.

“Pete, you’re supposed to be kissing me.” Patrick says with a small laugh.

Pete turns and he can’t see Patrick in this darkness, and there is a thought that fills the front of his mind, _is this what life is going to be like after the procedure?_

“What?”

“All the other rooms are occupied; Joe’s closet was the only place left where we can be alone.”

“Patrick, no.” Pete says when he feels the phantom touches of Patrick’s hands reaching for him, the soft dirty laugh that Patrick breathed out. “We don’t have time for this. We need to— we need to leave and get out.”

Pete finds Patrick’s hand in the darkness and holds on before pushing the closet door open. They walk out of Joe’s room and into the narrow hallway; Pete’s own memories of this night fill in the blanks that Mania corp couldn’t quite capture: Patrick’s pink mouth around a beer bottle, singing karaoke on Joe’s couch with their arms close enough to be touch each other, spilling half of his drink on Patrick’s jeans while he was still sober, Patrick not caring about the wet spot in his jeans the whole night. 

Pete was beginning to think they could stay in this memory, that he won’t mind living in this night forever if he had to. It was a good memory but it wasn’t the best either; Pete would trade this for early mornings waking up next to Patrick in a heartbeat, but one look at Patrick next to him, face bathed in that glow of Joe’s girlfriend’s fairy lights hung around their living room wall, and Pete doesn’t care as long as Pete still had Patrick.

Pete opens his mouth to tell Patrick they were safe now, that they could hide out here until morning where Pete will wake up with him still in the front of his mind, and Pete will promise he’ll make everything right, he’ll find him and apologize and things will be better this time around. But then the music grew louder, almost deafening, this wall of noise filling Pete’s ears and made it difficult to think. Mixing with this was the chatter of everyone around him, every word screamed into his ear.

“Pete, it’s too loud here.” Patrick says, gripping Pete’s hand tighter.

“I— I know. I’m— okay, let’s get out.” Pete grits out and Patrick is the one to guide them this time, leading them down the hall into Joe’s bathroom.

“You blew me in here, do you remember that?” Patrick asks him when they reached the bathroom door, his other hand around the doorknob. “You said it was the most quiet room in Joe’s apartment and that nobody would hear me.”

“Yeah.” Pete’s voice breaks. “I remember. I had no way to prove that nobody could but I just wanted to be alone with you.”

“I think I knew that.” Patrick says, throwing him a smile before he opens the door. “You should ask me if I did when you see the real me again.”

They walked to the bathtub with the running faucet that sounded like the roar of waves, and Pete knew what they had to do at that moment. Pete leads Patrick to the edge, hands gripping each other tightly as they took a dive into the blue together. Pete opens his eyes and they’re at the beach again and it’s empty, there are no people, there was no sound; the silence was almost deafening as the party earlier.

“I think we’re alone now.” Pete says, rubbing his thumb around Patrick's hand comfortingly, but it was more for his benefit than Patrick’s.

“It feels like we’ve reached the end of the world.” Patrick says softly, staring out into the great expanse of blue. “It feels like I’m on the edge of it with you next to me.”

Pete swallows the lump in his throat as Patrick pulls on his hand for them to sit on the sand, “That’s what I feel when I’m around you.”

“So, can you tell me what’s been happening?”

“I’m— we’re in my brain. This is a procedure, this thing—” Pete sighs in frustration but Patrick only hums for him to continue. “When I wake up tomorrow morning, I’m going to forget you. You’re going to stop existing.”

“Then why don’t you just wake up?”

“It’s not as easy as it— _you’re_ the reason why I’m here.”

Patrick frowns at him, unimpressed. “I don’t think now is the time to start a fight.”

Pete sighs, feels the sting of salty tears in his eyes, his chest aching. Pete asks Patrick, his voice small and vulnerable, “How do you do it? Why do you put up with me? You should have given up on me after the first time.”

“Because you wanted me to push you away.” Patrick replied with a small shrug, “It wasn’t all bad all the time, your memories make it look way worse than it was. Sometimes, you loved me more than I loved you. There were times when I hurt you too. You forgot a lot about that. I stayed because you’re much better at loving me than hurting me.”

“Then why did you erase us?”

Patrick shrugs again, eyes just as blue as the ocean in front of them; Pete thinks he could drown in them, choke on the salty water and let it fill his lungs, die in his sleep so that he wouldn’t have to live in a world without Patrick. After a short pause, Patrick finally answers, “You’ll have to ask the real me that.”

“But I’m going to forget you in the morning.” Pete says quietly, the words getting caught in his throat. “I don’t want to forget you.”

Patrick turns to look at Pete, there is nothing but forgiveness on his face, Pete’s forgotten what it looked like without lines of resentment crossing through it; Pete doesn’t know how but he’d do anything just to see it in real life again.

“You’ll find me again.” Patrick says, in that simple way again that convinces Pete; the ocean was blue, summer was made for lovers like them, Pete would find Patrick in every way that he could. It doesn’t stop the fear in his stomach though, that part was always going to be true, Pete was always going to have to live with this heavy fear for love.

“But what if you don't love me? What if things won’t be the same?”

“I will love you. But things can’t be the same the second time around, Pete.”

Patrick lets go of Pete’s hand, and Pete realizes this was the first time they have let each other go ever since they had run away into Pete’s memories. Patick reaches out to touch Pete’s face, to brush the tears that began racing down Pete’s face like raindrops on a car window. Patrick is about to touch his cheek when the sun above them explodes in a white light that fills Pete’s vision. Patrick has only brushed Pete’s cheek when he disappears, ripped from Pete’s hands reaching out for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi thank u so much if you're still reading this 🥺 comments n kudos will make me v happy im feeling so dkfbjndkfj abt this fic


	8. Chapter 8

Under the late morning light, Pete is left standing awkwardly in the middle of Patrick’s bedroom. After Patrick had made him cum last night, Patrick had grown shy, folding into himself and telling Pete that he could have the bed tonight as he ran off to the couch in his living room. Pete, embarrassed and scared to sleep alone in a stranger’s bed, dragged the comforter and pillow with him to sleep on the floor; Pete dreamt of black darkness the whole night, not the absence of dreaming, but the absence of feeling and memories.

Now, it’s almost noon, late morning sunlight filtering in Patrick’s window and it was clear to see what they had done last night, difficult to forget if Pete wanted to-- does Pete want to forget Patrick?. The sheets are still wrinkled and there is a suspicious dried stain in the middle of it that makes Pete’s face grow warm; it’s the next day and this should feel dirty and shameful the way one night stands with strangers usually feel to Pete, but why does this leave him feeling warm inside? 

Pete glances at the clock just as he hears the faint sound of someone coughing from behind the bedroom, figures it was too late for Pete to leave peacefully now that Patrick was probably up. Pete shuffles to the bedroom door and peeks out of it, there, he sees Patrick on his phone, two cups of coffee on the dining table.

Something about the sight tugs at Pete’s heart— there is something about Patrick that feels so achingly familiar, this thing that doesn’t make Pete feel like himself. Pete wants to sneak out, but it’s not because he didn’t want this to mean anything more than it was, but it was because he did— and because of that he needed to keep Patrick away before Pete fucks him over; it’s all he knows how to do.

But then Patrick looks up at that second and their eyes lock. Pete forgets his past and his sins; it is being baptized under the morning light and Patrick’s soft gaze.

“I made you coffee. It’s cold by now though.” Patrick mumbles, ducking his head, the corners of his mouth curving into a shy smile, he continues then, in a softer voice. “ I could order takeout if you’re hungry, I meant it when I said I wanted to treat you nicely.”

Pete is very thankful that Patrick had been staring hard at the floor, so hard that he didn’t even notice Pete crossing the distance between them before Pete’s brain could catch up. Pete takes Patrick’s face into his hands, cradling them, and he kisses Patrick. Patrick tastes of stale coffee and just a hint of toothpaste; Patrick is everything that Pete has dreamed of. Pete thinks that he still must be dreaming. Pete does not want to fuck it up. He  _ will not _ fuck this up, Pete decides the second Patrick slips his tongue into his mouth. 

“Spend another day with me. Run away with me, let’s be alone together.” Pete exhales into Patrick’s mouth for the fraction of a second that they part. And the words fit just right in Pete’s mouth, the shape of them familiar like he’s already asked of Patrick this before somewhere in a dream, in a past life, in a memory he must have forgotten now.

* * *

“Patrick!” Pete’s eyes fly open, fear already rising up his throat. He’s lying on his back on a couch with a weight on his chest— Patrick.

Patrick looks at him and yawns without covering his mouth, “What’s wrong? Where are we now?”

They’re back in their apartment again, but the details are a lot fuzzier than they used to be, Pete isn’t sure if their curtains had been that shade of yellow and if they really only did have three chairs. Every time Pete tries to remember, the memory leaves him just as fast, like he just couldn’t quite catch up before it’s taken away from him.

“In our apartment. We— We’re— everything is getting messed up. You were— you disappeared in front of me. I— Patrick— I—”

“Shh.” Patrick says soothingly, rubbing circles on Pete’s chest comfortingly. “Calm down, baby. Let’s think of a way to get out of this, alright?”

“Patrick— I don’t want to lose you like that ever again. I already lost you in real life, and then it was like you were ripped from me and I just—  _ I can’t go through that again _ .”

“You won’t,” Patrick mumbles, running his fingers through Pete’s hair, scratching his nails lightly along his scalp.

“You’re too calm about this. I— Patrick—”

Patrick wraps his arms around him, leans in, and brushes his lips across Pete’s temples, “It won’t, okay? I think I have an idea.”

Patrick sits up, resting his weight on Pete’s legs, “We’re in your memories right? And they’re only removing memories of me? So why don’t we just go somewhere I don’t belong to?”

“But what if I don’t remember what life was like before I met you?” Pete replies softly, holding on to Patrick’s hips, he’s scared that if his hands leave Patrick, he’d be taken away from him again.

Patrick did his half-smile, half-frown with the delighted shining blue eyes, his cheeks growing pink. “Don’t say things like that. Focus.”

“I should have said stuff like that to you in real life. I—“

Patrick only shakes his head and interrupts Pete, “ _ Focus _ , Pete. We have to get out of here.”

“But what if they find us?”

“Then think of a memory you’ve-- I don’t know, repressed or whatever. Think of something you tried really hard to forget.”

They remain silent and Pete tries to think, but it feels like thoughts don’t stick around for too long; the earlier sensation of everything being wiped happening again. Pete thinks of the first time he asked a girl out— it’s gone in an instant; his father’s angry face— not that, anything but that; the deep shame he felt the first time he raised his voice at Patrick— it’s gone just as quick as the first memory.

“Patrick— I  _ can’t _ .” Pete says in frustration, gritting his teeth, there’s the sting of tears in his eyes now. “Everything is so— I feel like I’m taking a test I didn’t study for, my memory just keeps getting wiped out.”

“Pete,” Patrick says gently, and Patrick is so patient, is still so kind and made of gold, and he’s always seen the good in Pete, has always believed he was better than he actually was, Pete wishes for the time he tried to meet Patrick’s expectations. “I know you can.”

Pete takes one more look in Patrick’s eyes, sees nothing but true blue sincerity right before closing his eyes again, his mind drifting back to the earlier memory of his father’s red face. Pete holds on to that memory and suddenly it was easy now to remember something he thought he had forgotten. There is the sound of muffled screaming behind bedroom walls; there is the backseat of a car where Pete feels himself fall to the floor as the car moves dangerously from side to side; he feels hot tears on his cheeks.

When Pete opens his eyes, he finds himself underneath his childhood bed. Pete knew what was going to happen, where he was going to end up in, but he still feels so fucking scared; the fear claws its way up Pete’s throat, making each breath he takes feel painful. Pete’s hand is empty and when he looks around he can’t find Patrick with him. 

“Patrick, where are you?” Pete whimpers, fist curling and uncurling, grabbing at empty air, “I need you here.”

“I’m here.” Patrick’s soft voice says from beside him and suddenly his warm body is pressed to Pete’s side and Patrick’s hand has slipped into his. “I’m here, Pete. You left me for a bit.”

Pete watches as Patrick quietly looks around, taking in the laundry on the floor, the clutter of toys pushed underneath the bed with them, the bottom of the band and movie posters on Pete’s wall. This was the thing Pete has held close to his heart, not because he loved it but because it was a secret place only he could get to. Pete keeps it here because this is the most guarded place he has,  _ nobody _ , not even Patrick has ever gotten this far, Pete has never allowed them to, always afraid that they’d find out why he was the way he was and think it wasn’t worth trying for. Pete’s heart was a place that Pete tried his hardest not to think about-- love and all those other feelings of gold, those only ever started coming around again when Pete met Patrick; but it still wasn’t enough in the end, love couldn’t save Pete.

“Hey, breathe.” Patrick whispers, moving closer and stroking Pete’s back. With the weight of Patrick’s hand on him, Pete is suddenly aware of his breathing, of the too fast and stuttered way his lungs worked. Pete tries to slow down his breathing, holding out his exhales and inhaling deeply. “Where are we?”

“I’m twelve.” Pete replies, hands unconsciously folding themselves into fists when he hears the faint sounds of footsteps. “We’re in my room and I don’t know which one this is going to be, there are a lot of memories of me hiding under my bed but I think it’s— it’s going to happen soon.”

Like magic, the door opens and Pete watches as his mother’s feet appear and walk to the edge of the bed. Pete’s mother, as Pete remembers her, has a penchant for crying, black ballet flats, smoking half a pack of cigarettes a day, and baking cookies for Pete as a way to apologize for aforementioned fights and for being unable to kick a bad habit that exposes Pete to secondhand smoke. Pete isn’t so sure how she is these days, he hasn’t called home in a few years, but this-- this is how Pete remembers her.

“Peanut, where are you, baby?” His mother calls for him, the nickname making Pete wince; nobody has called him that in so long. His mother’s voice is strained and rough, she had been crying and screaming in the other room for a while now. “Are you hiding under the bed again?”

“Leave me alone.” Pete answers, voice trembling the way it did all those years ago.

“I’m sorry you had to hear all of that.” Pete isn’t sure if his mother’s voice had always been that sticky sweet, it makes his stomach turn. Pete can feel Patrick’s confused gaze on him, his hands stilling behind Pete’s back, but Pete doesn’t turn to look at him, embarrassment creeping in the way it used to do whenever someone was an audience to his parents’ dramatics. “Peanut, don’t be mad at me.”

“It was your fault,” Pete says, unable to hold back his anger. “You started that fight with dad.”

His mother sighs, it’s long and apathetic, Pete imagines the cloud of cigarette smoke to fill his room the way it used to. “And he started the one last night.”

“It doesn’t matter who started it. You guys are always fighting, why can’t you just love each other?” and there it was, the desperation Pete had felt all those years ago; it starts from his stomach and it rises to his throat, it fills his lungs, it makes his hands feel heavy. Patrick gasps quietly next to him at the reply, and Pete suddenly wishes he were anywhere but here. Pete is suddenly so fucking ashamed that this is what he grew up to and that he was letting someone relieve all the worst memories with him.

There is silence, a long silence, and Pete tries to convince himself that they’re finally gone, that Mania corp has found this memory too. Before Pete could feel bad that their plan failed and how he was one memory closer to losing Patrick for real, his mother finally replies, “Peter, the sooner you realize that love can’t save you, the easier it would be for you—”

“But it does. It does.” Pete interrupts her, says it like he’s begging for it to be true, voice cracking, not wanting Patrick to hear the script Pete had grown up with. “Winona is my girlfriend and she says that she loves me.”

“And you will hurt Winona, and you will hurt the next Winona, and the girl after that. And you will continue to hurt them until you find someone who sticks with you who hurts you back, and that’s when you know you’ve found love—”

“Patrick said he loves me.” Pete shouts over her, crying now; his throat feels tighter, it’s getting harder to breathe.

“And look where that has brought you, Peter.” his mother’s voice changes then, still sweet but it’s rotten honey now. “Does Patrick really love you?”

“Enough.” Pete mumbles feebly, voice small and scared. “ _ Please _ . Make it stop. Patrick—”

And then just like that, like a prayer that’s been answered, Pete feels Patrick’s hands on his, the pull of it, and Patrick is guiding them further under the bed. Pete is still crying, tears streaming down his face as they crawl under his bed for what felt like forever. The darkness turns into a hedge maze, they twist and turn, and Patrick leads him throughout it all. Patrick is the savior Pete had been waiting for when he was twelve, that light that Pete had hoped for even though it had been a hope that had been too big for his body. Patrick is here with him, against everything, reality and possibility, unraveling this memory, tangling it in his fingers like loose thread or earphone wires, and turning it into something for the both of them.

“We’re not going to end up like your parents, Pete.” Patrick says, voice delicate but insistent. Pete shouldn’t be surprised when he opens his eyes and they’re back at the beach again, back in Heaven’s Gate, but he is— it is surprising that Patrick is still with him even though he’s seen it all.

“I don’t— it doesn’t matter. I don’t think about that anymore.” Pete hiccups, his tears are drying, but his voice is still wrecked.

“ _ Pete _ . We are not your parents.”

“That’s all I’ve ever known.” Pete spills out, “I— that’s what I thought love was and I can’t fully blame them for fucking me up but I just— I’m sorry, Patrick. I’m  _ so _ sorry that I hurt you. I wish I could take it all back.”

Pete doesn’t know how long they stay like that, arms linked around each other, his head in Patrick’s neck before he interrupts the silence, “The memory hasn’t been erased yet, do you think we’re safe?” 

“Do you feel safe?” Patrick asks him, 

Pete thinks about it, lets the feelings sink in deep into his bones. Pete has never felt this safe in his life, he feels open and vulnerable like a newborn, but he imagines himself able to hear Patrick’s heartbeat, and the world doesn’t feel so cruel anymore. Pete wishes he would remember what this would feel like when he wakes up; for once, real life would be better than his dreams— if only that Patrick would remember how he felt for Pete too.

“I do.” Pete admits aloud, and it only hits him just now how those two words take so much strength and courage, he’s never wanted to feel safe before. “But I’m still scared.”

“That’s okay,” Patrick hums, voice thick and Pete would turn his head to see if he were crying, but that feels like too much work right now. Pete likes it when the world is small like this, when it’s just the skin of Patrick’s neck he could see.

“How long do you think we have left?”

“Don’t think about it. Just think of me.”

Pete pulls away and he’s only just aware now that there are tears streaming down his cheeks. Pete cups Patrick’s face, staring at his face. Patrick lets him. With a bubbling desperation, Pete tries to remember everything about Patrick; the mole on his nose and right cheek, the scar on his chin he got from the time he fell down the stairs of Lan Kwai, light reflecting in his eyes that looked like a heart or a star depending on how you looked at it. Pete tries to grab on to all of it, going through all of them over and over, hoping that at least one of them will remain. When the tears start to make his vision blur, Pete ghosts his fingers over Patrick’s face; tries to memorize the slope of his nose, the curve of his upper lip— Pete realizes now that they’re heart shaped.

“This is it— we— Patrick.” Pete says, it’s suddenly so difficult to speak. Pete is afraid to move, any movement might expose them to Mania corp, is that how it works? “I can feel you slipping already.”

“I know.” Patrick replies gently, only holding him tighter. “What do we do?”

“Just hold me— I don’t want to— see.”

Pete is a trembling and sobbing mess when Patrick finally takes hold of his wrists. Patrick gently thumbs the tears out of his eyes before leading Pete back into his neck, into his arms. Pete doesn’t know how long they hold each other for but it still doesn’t feel enough when Patrick disappears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this is late i've only been back for 5 days and med school is already testing my will to live ! 
> 
> unsure when the next update will be tbh :( chapter 9 is written but unedited properly n i'll most likely want to flesh out a lot of parts there too, chapter 10 has been mapped out but fkjndkb :( anyway this will be on hold again until the semester ends probably lol :'( but i do rly want to finish this ahhhh im so sad :( thank u if you're still here though <3

**Author's Note:**

> me using mania & forgotten mania b-sides as narrative aesthetics in 2020? more likely than u think. it's all just part of my mania propaganda.
> 
> i had a fun time writing it and wish i had been able to meet the deadline for the peterick challenge :'( but im hoping you're liking this lil fic so far, kudos & comments will make me smileee. thank u for reading, see u nxt week (i promise im going to actually follow my schedule for this one)
> 
> [tumblr edit](https://supersfade.tumblr.com/post/622735048351875072/one-day-well-get-nostalgic-for-disaster-patrick)


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